NATIONAL  EDUCATION 
IN    GREECE  * 

In  tfje  Jpouttf)  CtentutB  befote  CCfw'st 


BY  AUGUSTUS  S.  WILKINS,  M.A., 

FELLOW  OF  UNIVERSITY  COLLEGE,  LONDON  ; 

LATE    SCHOLAR    OF    ST.    JOHN*6    COLLEGE,    CAMBRIDGE  ; 

PROFESSOR    OF    LATIN    IN    THE    OWENS    COLLEGE,    MANCHESTER 


ANASTATIC  REPRINT  OP  THE  EDITION  LONDON  1873. 


NEW  YORK 

Q.  E   S.TECHERT  &  CO. 
1911 


L  A 


LONDON  ; 
PRINTED   BY   VIRTUE   AND   CO., 

CITY  ROAD. 

ANASTATISCHE  DRUCKEREI  C.PAB1S 
BERLIN,N.58 


TO  THE  RIGHT  REVEREND 

CONNOP    THIRLWALL,   D.D., 

LORD  BISHOP  OF   ST.  DAVID'S, 

I  glefcicftie, 

WITH  PROFOUND  VENERATION, 

AN  ESSAY, 

WHOSE  ONLY  CLAIM    ON  THE  NOTICE   OF   THE  FIRST 

OF  LIVING  ENGLISH  HISTORIANS  IS, 

THAT  IT  COMES  ASSOCIATED,  HOWEVER  UNWORTHILY, 
WITH  THE  NAME  OF 

JULIUS    CHARLES    HARE. 


PREPACK 


|HE  following  essay  obtained  the 
Hare  Prize  in  the  University  of 
Cambridge,  a  prize  founded  in 
1 86 1  by  the  friends  of  the  Ven.  Archdeacon 
Hare,  "to  testify  their  admiration  for  his 
character,  and  the  high  sense  they  enter- 
tained of  his  services  to  learning  and 
religion/'  It  is  awarded  once  in  every 
four  years  to  the  graduate  of  not  more 
than  ten  years'  standing  from  his  first 
degree,  who  shall  produce  the  best  English 
Dissertation  on  some  subject  taken  from 
Ancient  Greek  or  Roman  History,  political 
or  literary,  or  from  the  History  of  Greek 
or  Roman  Philosophy.  The  subject  pro- 
posed by  the  Vice-Chancellor  for  the  year 
1873  was  "The  Theories  and  Practice  of 


viii  PREFACE. 

National  Education  in  Greece  during  the 
Fourth  Century  B.C." 

The  subject  of  Greek  education  has  been 
so  thoroughly  investigated,  the  passages 
in  classical  authors  that  bear  upon  it  have 
been  so  industriously  collected,  and  its 
principal  merits  and  defects  have  been  so 
fully  expounded,  that  it  is  difficult  now  to 
write  upon  it  with  any  originality.  In  this 
essay  my  aim  has  been  mainly  twofold,  to 
group  the  facts  familiar  to  every  scholar 
round  the  idea  of  the  relation  of  the  State 
to  the  citizen,  and  to  furnish  a  trustworthy 
sketch  of  this  side  of  the  life  and  thought 
of  Greece  for  the  use  of  the  general  reader. 
Now  that  the  supreme  importance  of 
national  education  is  happily  so  widely 
recognised,  there  are  probably  many  who, 
though  not  having  the  power  of  studying 
for  themselves  the  classical  authors,  still 
desire  to  know  how  the  problems  which 
are  straining  so  severely  the  statesmen  of 
to-day,  were  solved  in  the  ancient  world. 
I  do  not  know  any  work  in  English  which 
exactly  suits  this  want,  and  therefore  I 
have  endeavoured  to  adapt  this  essay  to 


PREFACE.  ix 

the  needs  of  a  wider  circle  than  that  to 
which,  under  other  circumstances,  it  might 
have  seemed  fitter  to  appeal.  The  autho- 
rities' used  are  in  all  cases  referred  to  in 
the  margin.  In  dealing  with  Plato,  I  have 
been  deeply  indebted  to  his  two  great 
English  exponents  and  critics.  In  other 
cases  I  have  drawn  chiefly  on  the  scholars 
of  Germany ;  but  all  references  to  classical 
authors  have  been  independently  examined 
and  verified.  Unfortunately,  the  admirable 
sketch  of  the  history  of  education  among 
the  Greeks  and  Romans  by  the  well-known 
Danish  scholar,  J.  L.  Ussing  (translated 
into  German  by  Friedrichsen.  Altona,  1870), 
and  the  copious  collection  of  materials  by 
K.  F.  Hermann  in  his  Privatalterthiimer 
(and  edition  by  Stark.  Heidelberg,  1870), 
did  not  reach  me  until  I  had  written  these 
pages.  References  to  them  have  here  and 
there  been  added  in  the  course  of  revision. 

OWENS  COLLEGE,  MANCHESTER, 

October •,  1873. 


CONTENTS, 


CHAPTER  I. 

PAGE 

INTRODUCTORY — EDUCATION  IN  SPARTA  .        .       i 


CHAPTER  II. 
EDUCATION  AT  ATHENS 60 

CHAPTER  III. 
PLATO  ON  EDUCATION  .  101 


CHAPTER  IV. 
ARISTOTLE  ON  EDUCATION 135 


CHAPTER  I. 

INTRODUCTORY. — NATIONAL  EDUCATION 
IN  SPARTA. 

[HE  object  of  the  present  essay  Object  of  the 
will  be  to  set  forth,  so  far  as  our  etwy' 
extant    authorities    allow  —  i  st, 
the  popular  Greek  conceptions 
of  the  aims  and  methods  of  national  edu- 
cation;  2nd,  the  manner  in  which  these 
conceptions    were    carried    into    practical 
effect,  with  their  general  results  upon  na- 
tional life ;  and  3rd,  the  criticisms  of  the 
popular  ideas  and  methods  of  education 
passed  by  the  great  Greek  thinkers  of  the 
fourth   century  before   our    era,  with  the 
substitutes  suggested  by  them. 
In  attempting  to  deal  with  these  ques-  Limits  of  the 

i  •  -  inquiry. 

tions    successively  our    attention    will    of 

necessity   be    limited    almost    wholly    tc 

B 


2  EDUCATION  IN  SPARTA. 

Athens  and  Sparta.  It  is  true  that  for 
a  portion  of  the  century  under  our  more 
immediate  consideration  the  hegemony  of 
Greece  falls  to  the  lot  of  Thebes.  But 
her  supremacy  was  too  brief  and  baseless 
for  the  thought  of  the  Athenian  writers 
(on  whom  we  have  mainly  to  depend)  to 
be  attracted  to  her  institutions,  social  or 
political,  in  the  same  way  in  which  it  was 
challenged  by  those  of  Lacedaemon.  The 
Theban  views  and  methods  of  education 
will  therefore  claim  our  notice  rather  by 
way  of  occasional  contrast  and  comparison 
than  as  an  independent  portion  of  our 
inquiries.  And  in  regard  to  the  other 
Hellenic  communities,  we  find  in  almost 
every  case,  either  that  we  have  but  hints 
and  fragments  of  information  which  whet 
our  interest  rather  than  satisfy  it,  or  that 
our  authorities  treat  of  periods  excluded 
from  this  essay  by  the  limits  of  time  im- 
posed. Magna  Graecia,  the  Aeolic  colonies 
of  Lesbos  and  the  adjacent  coast,  Crete 
and  Ionia,  would  all  furnish  matter  of  value 
for  a  general  history  of  Greek  education, 
which  must  here  be  regarded  as  excluded. 


DORIANS  AND  IONIANS.  3 

But  happily  the  states  on  which  we  have  Athens  and 
the  fullest  information  are  not  only  those  JwU* 
of  the  greatest  intrinsic  interest,  but  they 
may  also  be  regarded  as  typical.  From 
the  earliest  appearance  of  the  Hellenic 
race  on  the  stage  of  history,  it  presents 
itself  to  us  as  broadly  divided  into  two 
great  sections.*  The  division  was  never 
deep  enough  to  sever  the  bond  which 
united  all  together  as  members  of  a  com- 
mon Hellas ;  nor  did  it  exclude  numerous 
and  occasionally  important  sub-divisions. 
Still,  speaking  with  a  certain  latitude,  we 
may  say  that  a  careful  study  of  the  leading 
characteristics  of  the  Dorian  and  Ionian 
races,  and  their  mutual  influence,  will  give 
us  almost  all  we  want  for  a  knowledge  of 
the  mental  and  spiritual  life  of  Hellas.f 
Now  of  these  two  races,  Athens  and  Sparta 
were  undoubtedly  the  recognised  leaders 
and  representatives ;  and  therefore,  if  we 

*  E.  Curtius  has  well  shown  that  minor  divisions  sink  into 
insignificance  compared  with  this  great  dualism. 

f  The  statement  in  Theophrast.  Char.  Proem,  (worthless 
as  is  the  authority  on  which  it  rests)  is  probably  not  fa  from 
the  truth— *avr*v  r&v  'EXXtfvwv  bpoius  Traitsvopivw. 
Cp.  Wittmann— -Erziehung  und  Untenicht  bei  Platon,  p.  7. 


4  EDUCATION  IN  SPARTA. 

succeed  in  mastering  the  Athenian  and 
Spartan  systems  of  education,  we  shall  be 
in  possession  of  the  main  ideas  current 
in  the  other  Hellenic  states,  although  their 
developement  may  well  have  been  modified 
greatly  by  varying  conditions  in  each  in- 
dividual case* 

The  Dorians.  From  the  numerous  and  inconsistent 
legends  of  the  origin  of  the  Dorians,  dis- 
cussed very  fully  by  Ottfried  Miiller,  we 
can  learn  but  little  as  to  the  influences 
which  stamped  upon  them  their  well-marked 
character.  It  is  possible  that  comparative 
philology,  which  has  done  so  much  for  us 
already,  may  yet  be  able  to  give  us  some 
light  on  this  subject ;  but  at  present  it  can 
carry  us  no  further  than  the  days  when 
the  Italo-Hellenic  people  were  still  united.* 
We  may  perhaps  conjecture  that  a  life  in 
the  rough  mountainous  country  of  Northern 

The  picture  of  their  common  civilisation  has  been  gra- 
phically sketched  by  Mommsen  (i.  19-31) ;  the  materials 
for  adding  a  few  more  details  are  given  by  Fick— "  Ver- 
gleichendes  Worterbuch "  (2nd  edition),  pp.  421-504.  I 
intentionally  pass  over  the  difficult  question  whether  the 
Keltic  tribes  remained  united  with  the  Italians  up  to  and 
after  their  separation  from  the  Hellenes.  But  cp.  Peile's 
•'Etymology,*'  24-27 ;  and  Schleicher  in  Rhein.  Mus.  for  1859. 


THE  DORIAN  CHARACTER.  5 

Hellas,  exposed  to  the  constant  assaults 
of  the  barbarians  who  were  ever  pressing 
southwards,  was  the  main  cause  of  their  / 
distinctive  character*  Dr.  Donaldson,  fol- 
lowing Kenrick,  finds  a  trace  of  their 
earliest  home  in  Greece  in  the  very  name 
Dorian  (Aupwfe, '  Highlanders/  from  8&  and 
opos);  and  the  more  probable  explanation 
of  the  name  sanctioned  by  Prof.  G.  Curtius 
(vielleicht  bedeutete  auch  Aoyu'-s  eigentlich 
Holzland,  Waldland,  so  dass  die  Aupccts 
unsern  "  Holsaten  "  entsprachen)  points 
in  the  same  direction.  Dr.  E.  Curtius 
says,  I  think  with  justice,  that  "in  the 
full  and  broad  sounds  of  their  dialect  we 
seem  to  recognise  the  chest  strengthened 
by  mountain  air  and  mountain  life.0  But 
our  knowledge  of  their  history  before  the 
dawn  of  trustworthy  tradition  is  too  slight 
to  enable  us  to  determine  whether  it  was 
only  external  conditions  which  moulded 
their  national  life,  or  whether  there  were 
not  far  earlier  race  distinctions  which  con- 
tributed largely  to  fashion  it.  It  is  certain  Dorian  cha. 
that  wherever  we  come  upon  them  in 
historic  times  we  find  the  same  charac- 


6  EDUCATION  IN  SPARTA. 

teristic  tendencies,  obscured,  it  may  be, 
in  wealthy  mercantile  cities  like  Corinth 
(itself,  however,  to  a  large  extent  Achaean), 
and  appearing  in  their  unmixed  clearness 
only  in  isolated  states  like  Crete,  yet 
nowhere  wholly  wanting.  We  have  on 
one  side  a  freshness  and  simplicity  of  life, 
a  manly  energy,  a  bright  and  joyous  but 
self-restrained  and  calm  religion — points 
on  which  Miiller  delights  to  dwell;  but  on 
the  other  hand,  a  want  of  the  free  play  of 
individual  activity,  the  quick  intellectual 
subtlety,  the  restless,  inquisitive  temper  of 
the  Ionian  mind.  Above  all  we  have  the 
great  idea  of  the  state  dominating  every 
member,  and  owning  their  absolute  and 
unqualified  obedience.  In  the  vigorous 
and  suggestive  passage  in  which  Mommsen 
compares  the  Italian  and  Hellenic  charac- 
ters, he  appears  to  have  had  in  view 
throughout  Athens  as  the  type  and  crown 
of  Hellas,  we  cannot  say  wrongly ;  but  in 
many  points  the  Dorians  approach  more 
nearly  to  the  Italian  than  to  the  Athenian 
character;  and  their  conception  of  the  claims 
of  the  state  seems  to  have  been  one  of 


THE  INFLUENCE  OF  DELPHI.        7 

these.  It  cannot  be  said  of  Dorians  that 
"  they  sacrificed  the  whole  to  its  individual 
elements,  the  nation  to  the  single  state, 
and  the  single  state  to  the  citizen ; "  it  is  Mommsen, 
rather  true  that  they  "surrendered  their  ' 
personal  will  for  the  sake  of  freedom,  and 
learnt  to  obey  their  fathers,  that  they  might 
know  how  to  obey  the  State,"  although,  ibid.,  i.  31. 
"in  such  subjection  as  this,  individual 
developement  might  be  arrested,  and  the 
germs  of  the  fairest  promise  in  man  might 
be  arrested  in  the  bud."  It  is  very  note- 
worthy from  this  point  of  view,  that  the 
centralising  influence  of  Delphi,  if  not 
originating  in  Dorian  ideas,  was  at  least 
extended  by  Dorian  energy.  Prof.  Curtius 
holds  that  the  Dorian  idea  of  a  state  was 
formed  by  the  action  of  the  Delphic  priest* 
hood.  Whether  this  was  the  case,  or 
whether  it  was  external  pressure  that 
welded  the  Dorians  into  greater  unity  than 
was  ever  attained  by  the  looser  Ionian 
city-federations,  may  be  left  uncertain.  It 
is  clear  that  throughout  the  period  of  the 
prime  of  Hellas,  there  was  a  very  close 
connection  and  sympathy  between  the  Del- 


8  EDUCATION  IN  SPARTA. 

Cp.  Mailer's   phic  authorities  and  the  leading  Dorian 

Dorians,  iL 

241.  states.  And,  in  spite  of  the  Spartan 

xenelasy,  it  is  probable  that  the  link  of 
union  lay  in  common  Panhellenic  tenden- 
cies. At  any  rate  we  find  the  great 
Olympian,  Pythian,  Nemean,  and  Isthmian 
games  all  celebrated  in  Dorian  territory, 

Curtius,  ii,  and  in  honour  of  deities  distinctively  or 
especially  Dorian. 

The  spartan       The  key  to  the  right  understanding  of 

institutions. 

the  Spartan  institutions  lies  in  regarding 
See  K.  F.      them  as  the  old  Dorian  laws  and  customs 
arguments5      modified  under  the  pressure  of  exceptional 
Grote.  Plato,  conditions.    The  current  traditions  repre- 
sented the  conquest  of  Laconia  as  rapid 
and  complete.    But  this  is  sufficiently  dis- 
proved, not  only  by  isolated  fragments  of 
Muller,  book  information  which  are  wholly  inconsistent 
with  any  such  view,  but  also  by  consider- 
ing the  nature  of  the  case.  The  Spartans  to 
the  end  of  their  history  were  confessedly  very 
unskilful  in  the  attack  of  fortified  places; 
and,  indeed,  how  was  it  possible  that  their 
phalanx  of   spearmen,  irresistible  in   the 
open  field,  should  be  equally  adapted  to 
scale  the    Acro-Corinthus  or  the  Argive 


THE  POSITION  OF  SPARTA.  g 

Larisa?  It  cannot  be  doubted  that  the 
Dorians  of  Sparta  carried  on  for  years, 
and  it  may  be  for  generations,  a  kind  of 
€7reTcixMJ/tos  against  the  surrounding  Achaean 
towns.  Hence  their  distinguishing  belief 
in  the  absolute  right  of  the  state  to  the 
unconditional  obedience  of  its  citizens, 
must  have  been  intensified  by  the  know^ 
ledge  that  this  unhesitating  devotion  was 
simply  needful  for  self-preservation.  Sparta  Cp.  Ar.  Pol. 
was  a  garrison  planted  in  the  midst  of  EV,WIC  -  . 


j      -A       1  j     i_    t.-^  - 

N  enemies,  and  its  laws  and  habits  were  pevovnc  rote 
"those  of  a  garrison.  That  every  citizen 
should  be  trained  to  the  highest  perfection 
of  physical  condition  and  discipline  was 
an  essential  requisite  of  their  position. 
And  when  the  supremacy  of  Sparta  over 
Amyclae,  Aegys,  Pharis,  and  Helos  had 
once  been  established,  not  less  vigilance 
and  energy  were  needed  to  retain  it.  The 
Achaean  population  was  crushed,  but  not 
exterminated*  Mutatis  mutandis^  the  posi- 
tion of  the  Spartans  was  not  unlike  that 
which  the  English  have  for  a  century  held 
in  India.  In  our  own  case  the  maintenance 
of  empire  is  aided  by  a  more  advanced 


io  EDUCATION  IN  SPARTA. 

material  civilisation,  and  by  a  still  more 
marked  superiority  of  national  character. 
But  the  Dorian  invaders  were  probably 
decidedly  inferior  to  the  Achaeans  in  the 
arts  of  peace,  and  distinctions  of  race, 
though  of  course  existing,  were  of  much 
less  importance  than  is  the  case  as  between 
the  Englishman  and  the  Bengali.  But 
the  needful  conditions  for  the  rule  of  a 
nation  by  a  small  body  of  foreigners  are 
a  proud  consciousness  on  the  part  of  the 
rulers  that,  man  for  man,  they  are  im- 
measurably superior  to  the  subject  race, 
and  an  unhesitating  daring,  ready  in  times 
of  trial  to  fling  itself  upon  unnumbered 

enemies  ^rj  <f>povrjfjLaTi  povov  dXXa  /cat  KaTa<f>povyf&art. 

Like    the    slave-priest    of  Aricia,   Sparta 

held  her  national  life  only  so  long  as  she 

proved  herself  stronger  in  battle  than  all 

Compare  the   who  might  come  against  her.     And  as  the 

words  of 

Brasidas :       chance  of  a  struggle  was  always  imminent, 

Thuc.  iv.  126; 

Ar.  Pol.  ii.  9,  every  one  of  her  citizens  was  kept  in  per- 
fect training  for  it. 

Lycurgns.  That  Lycurgus  had  a  real  historical 
Thiriwall,  existence  hardly  admits  of  doubt.  But  it 
this?  i.' 19™"  is  difficult  to  determine  what  amount  of 


LYCURGUS.  u 

originality  may  be  ascribed  to  his  legisla- 
tion. On  the  whole  it  seems  most  probable 
that  he  did  little  more  than  revive  and 
place  under  a  strong  religious  sanction 
the  ancient  laws  and  institutions  of  the 
Dorians,  adapting  them  in  a  few  par- 
ticulars to  the  peculiar  position  of  the 
Spartans.  This  is  the  view  of  Bishop 
Thirlwall,  accepted  on  the  whole  by  Cur- 
tius.*  The  basis  of  all  his  reforms,  as 
Plutarch  tells  us,  was  his  system  of 
national  education.  But  here  we  must  piut.  Lye.  14. 
digress  for  a  moment  to  limit  the  appli- 
cation of  the  term.  In  Sparta  as  in 
Athens,  and  indeed  throughout  Hellas,  the 
phrase  bore  a  very  different  meaning  from 
that  which  is  happily  attached  to  it  in 
modern  times.  In  Sparta  there  were  at 
most  nine  thousand  families  of  citizens, 

I  am  speaking  of  course  with  reference  mainly  to  the 
social  institutions  of  Lycurgus.  There  is  force  in  the  argu- 
ments by  which  Curtius  endeavours  to  show  that  part  of  the 
political  constitution  was  distinctly  Achaean.  But  it  is  sur- 
prising to  find  him  ignoring  the  irrefragable  evidence  by 
which  Grote  has  disproved  the  tradition  of  an  equal  division 
of  land.  To  the  whole  system  of  Sparta  Grote  is  disposed 
to  attribute  more  originality  and  a  more  exceptional  posi- 
tion than  most  other  authorities  will  allow.  Compare  his 
History,  and  especially  his  "  Plato,"  vol.  iii.  309,  note  x. 


1 2  EDUCA  TION  IN  SPARTA. 

surrounded  by  more  than  three  times  as 
many  Perioeci,  and  a  Helot  population, 
amounting  on  the  whole  at  least  to  two 

Mailer,  ii.  45.  hundred  and  fifty  thousand.  In  Attica, 
with  its  population  of  half  a  million,  at 
least  four-fifths  of  the  whole  were  slaves. 

Bockh,  Publ.  But  of  anything  like  a  public  education 

Econ.  book  i.      f 

c.  7.  of  slaves,  or  even  of  Perioeci,  there  could 

never  have  .been  a  question  in  Hellas. 
The  "nation"  then,  in  the  eyes  of  a  Greek, 
would  only  consist  of  the  free  population, 
possessing  the  full  civic  rights — Aristotle 
even  excludes  the  "base  mechanicals" 
(pavawroi]  from  his  ideal  state — and  there- 
fore the  term  "national  education"  must 
be  taken  in  the  limited  sense  of  the  educa- 
tion of  that  small  minority  of  the  whole 
community  which  was  recognised  as  form- 
ing the  nation.  But  to  resume :  the  aim  of 
Lycurgus  was  to  train  the  citizens  of  Sparta 
to  the  greatest  possible  efficiency  in  war. 
To  this  every  other  object  was  unsparingly 
sacrificed.  Plato  says  in  his  Laws  (i.  630  D) 

ra  r    *v  Aaxc&u/iovi   fecu   ra  TjjSc  trpos  rov 
fiaXicrra  ^3AeVorras  AvKovpyov  T€  /cat  Mtrfe 

ra  FO/U/LUZ.    On  the  means  which  he 


OUR  AUTHORITIES.  13 

employed  to  obtain  this  result  we  have,  Our  authors 
fortunately,    ample    and    trustworthy    in- 
formation.   It  is  true  that  the  writings  of 
Plutarch  require  to  be  used  with  caution. 
Living,   as  he   did,   long    after    the    time 
when    Sparta    had    ceased    to    have    any 
independent  national  life,  his  facts  are  of 
course    given    us    only    on    second-hand 
authority.      And    Mr.  Grote  has   pointed 
out  another  less  patent  source  of  possible 
error.      The    abortive    attempts    at    re- 
form made  by  Agis  and  Cleomenes  not 
only  had  failed  to  restore  the  primitive 
Spartan  constitution,  but  also  had  caused 
the  new  ideas  which  their  enthusiasm  or 
their  policy  had  announced  as  constituent 
parts  of  the  Lycurgan  institutions  to  be 
accepted  by  later  historians  as  really  such. 
Plutarch    has  undoubtedly  misled  us    on 
the  question  of  the  equal  distribution  of 
the  land;    and  it  would  be  rash  to  use 
without  suspicion  any  assertion  of  his  that 
is  unsupported  by  better  authorities.    Iso- 
crates,  though  a  contemporary  authority 
for  the  period  which  we  have  especially 
to  consider,  is  of  little  value,  because  of 


14  EDUCA  TTON  IN  SPARTA. 

the  strong  hostility  to  the  Lacedaemonians 

Cp.  Paneg.     which  appears  in  his  writings.     But  Xeno- 
§§  110-132. 

phon  and  Aristotle   can  be  trusted  with 

less  reserve.     The  AaKcSatjxonW  HoXwcta  of 


Cp.  Weiske's  the  former  has  been    suspected    both    in 

dissertation 

prefixed  to      ancient    and    in    modern    times,  but    the 

Schneider's 

edition.  arguments  against  it  do  not  appear  to  be 
strong;  and  the  tone  of  the  treatise  is 
just  what  would  be  expected  from  the 
friend  of  Agesilaus  and  the  exile  of 
Scillus.  There  is  an  evident  tendency  to 
apologise  for  Spartan  customs  and  to 
prefer  them  to  those  of  Athens;  and 
though  this  of  itself  would  not  be  sufficient 
to  prove  the  authorship,  for  it  became  the 
fashion  to  write  in  this  style  in  the  Attic 
schools  of  philosophy,  yet  it  tends  to  con- 
firm the  opinion  which  we  should  form 
from  external  evidence.  In  the  case  of 
Aristotle,  we  have  unfortunately  lost  his 
noXwcwu,  in  which  he  gathered  the  material 
which  was  employed  in  his  extant  treatise 

Cp.  Zeller,  ii.  •&  HoXtrtKa  ;  but  in  the  latter  work  we  have 
not  only  most  instructive  criticisms,  but 
also,  incidentally,  very  valuable  informa- 
tion on  the  Spartan  laws  and  customs. 


MARRIAGE.  15 

The    authority    of    both    Xenophon    and 

Aristotle  has  been  impugned  by  Manso,  Sparta  I.  ii. 

69. 
on  the  ground  that  neither  was  himself  a 

Spartan;  but  the  former  can  have  been 
little  less  familiar  with  Spartan  institutions 
than  a  native  citizen,  while  the  careful 
accuracy  of  Aristotle  is  surely  beyond  the 
possibility  of  censure.  It  is  to  these  two 
writers,  therefore,  supplemented  by  the 
somewhat  numerous  allusions  in  the  Laws 
of  Plato,  that  we  shall  have  mainly  to 
look  for  guidance. 
The  absolute  right  of  the  State  to  dispose  Authority  of 

.   .  -  .     ,  the  State. 

of  its  members  as  seemed  to  it  best  was 

not  allowed  to  remain  a  theory  at  Sparta. 

From  their  birth  through  all  the  successive 

stages  of   infancy,  childhood,  youth,  and 

manhood,  its  authority  never  ceased  to  be 

seen  and  felt.     In  fact  it  may  be  said  to 

have  commenced  even  before  their  appear- 

ance in  the  world  ;   for  it  was  the  state 

which  determined  what  marriages  should 

be  sanctioned  or  forbidden.    The  numerous  Xcn.  de  Rep. 

regulations  as  to  the  time,  the  manner,  Aristotle  quite 


and  the  place   of   marriage,   ascribed  by 
Xenophon  to  Lycurgus,  all  had  for  their  f6°.L  iv*  (™'} 


j 6  EDUCA TION  IN  SPARTA . 

object  the  production  of  the  healthiest  and 
most  vigorous  offspring  ;  and  so  far  was 
this  desire  for  cvyovux  carried,  that,  if  our 
authorities  do  not  mislead  us,  practices  the 
most  revolting,  fatal  to  the  nobler  aspects 
of  marriage,  were  deliberately  permitted  in 
,  ii.  order  to  secure  it.  Muller  endeavours  to 

2 1 1  and  301  -2.  P 

exalt  the  Dorian  idea  of  marriage  by  com- 
paring it  with  the  views  current  in  Ionian 
countries,  and  he  is  probably  right  in  his 
comparative  estimate ;  but  he  is  obliged  to 
confess  that  at  Sparta  marriage  was  con- 
sidered mainly  "as  a  public  institution, 
in  order  to  rear  up  a  strong  and  healthy 
Vol.  i.  105  progeny  to  the  nation."  Plutarch  tells 
&#*Lrr  of  us  that  "  new-born  children  were  carried  at 
children.  once  to  certam  tryers,  who  were  elders  of 
the  tribe  to  which  the  child  belonged. 
Their  business  was  to  view  the  infant  care- 
fully, and  if  they  found  it  stout  and  well- 
made,  they  gave  order  for  its  rearing,  and 
allotted  to  it  one  of  the  nine  thousand 
shares  of  land  for  its  maintenance:  but 
if  they  found  it  puny  and  ill-shaped,  they 
ordered  it  to  be  taken  to  what  was  called 
the  Apothetae,  a  sort  of  chasm  under 


EXPOSURE  OF  CHILDREN.         17 

Taygetus,  as   thinking   it   neither  for  the 
good  of  the  child  itself,  nor  for  the  public 
interest,  that  it  should  be  brought  up  if  it 
did  not,  from  the  very  outset,  appear  made 
to  be  healthy  and   vigorous."     This  fact 
rests,  I   believe,  only  on   the  authority  of 
Plutarch,    and    some    of    the    details    are 
probably    inaccurate.      For    instance,   the 
allotment  of  one  share  of  land  stands  or 
falls  with  the  theory  of  an  equal  distribu- 
tion of  property  by  Lycurgus,  which  Mr. 
Grote  has  so  brilliantly  disproved  :  but  the 
general  fact  of  the  destruction  of  deformed 
or  weakly  children  may  very  well  be  true.* 
Plato     (Rep.    vi.    460    B),    and     Aristotle 
(Pol.   iv.    (vii.)    1 6,    15),    both    give    their 
sanction  to  it;  and  it  seems  to  have  been 
commonly    allowed,    if    not    approved,   in 
Hellas.f       Some,     however,     have     inter- 
preted the  *  putting  away '  (d7ro'0e<ns)  to  mean 

*  Thirl  wall  does  not  doubt  it,  i.  372. 

f  On  the  question  how  far  the  arbitrary  exposure  of  chil- 
dren was  generally  practised  and  approved  there  are  some 
valuable  remarks  by  K.  F.  Hermann  in  "Charikles,"  ii. 
5  (2nd  edition).  It  is  noteworthy  that  at  Thebes  (but 
apparently  there  alone)  it  was  expressly  forbidden  by  law, 
and  provision  was  made  by  the  State  for  the  support  of 
those  children  whose  parents  were  unable  to  keep  them.  Cp. 
Aelian.  Var.  Hist.  ii.  7,  and  Ussing,  op.  cit.  p.  23. 


1 8  EDUCATION  IN  SPARTA. 

simply  that  such  infants  were  exposed  in 

the  villages   of  the  Perioeci,  and  grew  up 

among  them,  excluded  from  the  "  military 

Curtius, i. 202.  brotherhood"  of  the  Spartans.     Up  to  the 

Training  of    age  of  seven  years,  children  were  left  to  the 

vounq  chil- 
dren, care  of  their  mothers  or  of  nurses;  but  the 

rigorous  discipline  under  which  they  were 
to  spend  their  lives  began  at  once.  Swad- 
dling bands  were  discarded,  and  they  grew 
up  unfettered  in  limb;  their  food  was 
plain,  and  not  too  plentiful;  and  Plutarch 
adds  the  hardly  credible  information  that 
they  were  "not  afraid  in  the  dark,  or  of 
being  left  alone,  without  any  peevishness 
or  ill-humour  or  crying."  We  cannot 
wonder  that  Spartan  nurses,  if  they  really 
secured  this,  "were  often  bought  up  or 
hired  by  people  of  other  countries,"  as,  for 
Piut.  Lycurg.  instance,  by  the  parents  of  Alcibiades.*  A 
glimpse  at  the  brighter  side  of  the  chil- 
KaXapov  dren's  life  is  given  us  by  the  well-known 
Piut  Ages^s.  story  of  Agesilaus  riding  on  a  stick  to 

*  Schomann,  Griech.  Alterth.  i.  265  (note  2),  quotes 
another  instance  of  a  -Laconian  nurse  at  Athens,  in  Malicha 
of  Cythera,  nurse  to  the  children  of  Diogiton.  Her  tomb 
has  been  recently  discovered  in  Athens.  Cp.  Bulletino  di 
corrisp.  Archeol.  1841,  p.  56. 


TRAINING  OF  BOYS.  19 

amuse  his  little  ones  ;  and  to  a  Dorian,  if 

not  to  a  Spartan,  the  philosopher  Archytas, 

is  ascribed  the  credit  of  the  invention  of 

the   rattle   (n-Xaray^)  "which  they   give   to 

children,  in   order  that  having  the  use  of 

this  they  may  not  break  any  of  the  things 

in   the    house  :   for  little  creatures  cannot 

keep  still."     At  seven  years  of  age   boys  Arist.  Pol.  v. 

were   taken   from    their  parents,    and   the  v 


regular  education  (aywy^)  by  the  State  com- 
menced. Xenophon  contrasts  the  custom  state  educa- 
of  the  other  Greeks  in  this  respect  with 
that  of  the  Spartans  ;  for  while  the 
former,  as  soon  as  the  children  could 
understand  what  was  said  to  them,  placed 
them  in  charge  of  a  slave  called  the 
TratSaywyos,  and  sent  them  off  with  him  to 
schoolmasters,  Lycurgus  chose  as  their 
master  one  of  the  most  eminent  of  the 
citizens,  to  whom  he  assigned  the  office 
of  TrcuSoj/o/xos.  The  boys  were  divided  into 
bands  called  dye'Aai,  or  in  the  Laconian 
dialect  fiovat,  and  over  each  of  these  was  a 
fiovdyop,  chosen  from  the  youths  who  were 
just  entering  manhood,  who  acted  as  the 
captain  of  the  band.  All,  rich  and  poor 


20  EDUCA TION  IN  SPARTA . 

alike,  were  subjected  to  the  same  rigid 
discipline,  and  did  their  exercises  and 
took  their  play  together.  A  specific  quan- 
tity of  food  was  allotted  to  each ;  but  this 
was  intentionally  barely  sufficient  for  them, 
in  order  that  they  might  learn  to  do  with 
Xen.  Rep.  as  little  as  possible,*  At  the  same  time 

Lac.  c.  2. 

they  were  encouraged  to  steal  whatever 
they  could,  as  being  so  best  prepared 
for  military  service,  "for  evidently  one 
who  is  to  play  the  thief,  must  watch 
by  night  and  deceive  by  day,  lie  in  am- 
bush, ay,  and  supply  himself  with  spies, 

Cp.  GelHus,  if  he  is  to  get  anything."  But  any  one  who 
was  detected  in  stealing  was  beaten  se- 
verely for  his  clumsiness  in  not  learning 
aptly,  as  Xenophon  says,  the  lesson  which 
it  was  intended  to  teach  him.  There  was 

Flogging.  a  strange  practice  of  Sia^aoTtywo-is,  accord- 
ing to  which  boys  were  flogged  severely 
at  the  altar  of  Artemis  Orthia,  and  vied 
with  each  other  in  bearing  the  blows 
without  a  murmur,  even  though  they 

*  Athenaeus,  an  uncritical  and  somewhat  doubtful  au- 
thority, tells  us  (xii.  12)  that  leanness  was  so  much  admired 
at  Sparta,  that  the  boys  were  inspected  every  ten  days,  and 
any  one  who  seemed  too  fat  was  whipped. 


TRAINING  OF  BOYS.  21 

sometimes  died  under  the  suffering.  This 
was  probably  first  adopted  as  a  substitute 
for  human  sacrifices;*  a  view  which  is 
supported  by  the  fact  that  it  lasted  down 
to  the  days  of  Cicero  (Tusc.  Disp.  ii.  34), 
Plutarch  (Lycurg.  p.  108),  and  even  Pau- 
sanias  (iii.  16,  6,  7).  Plutarch,  indeed, 
assures  us  that  he  had  himself  seen  several 
of  the  youths  endure  whipping  to  death. 
Whatever  its  origin,  it  was  taken  advantage 
of  by  the  Spartan  legislator  to  strengthen 
the  contempt  of  pain,  which  it  was  one 
of  his  principal  objects  to  implant.  For  Dress. 
the  same  reason  boys  till  their  twelfth 
year  were  only  allowed  to  wear  a  single 
sleeveless  chiton,  exchanged  as  they  ad- 
vanced in  years  for  a  plain  rough  cloak, 
which  served  them  all  the  year  round. 
They  commonly  went  barefooted,  and 
often  stripped  entirely  for  their  games. 
In  all  their  amusements,  as  well  as  their 
exercises,  they  were  constantly  under  the 
eyes  of  the  older  men ;  and  we  are  told 
that  the  latter  delighted  to  stir  up  quarrels 

*  Cp.  Preller,  "  Griechische  Mythologie,"  i.  240   (2nd 
edition). 


22  EDUCATION  IN  SPARTA. 

and  disputes  among  them,-  "to  have  a 
good  opportunity  of  finding  out  their  dif- 
ferent characters,  and  of  seeing  which 
would  be  valiant,  which  a  coward,  when 
they  should  come  to  more  dangerous  en- 
Trainingof  counters."  From  their  twelfth  year  their 

voutks. 

training  increased  in  severity;  and  the 
several  stages  between  this  date  and  that  of 
manhood,  which  was  fixed  at  thirty  years, 
were  marked  by  different  names,  corre- 
sponding, probably,  though  we  cannot 
determine  the  point  exactly,  to  changes 
in  their  forms  of  education.*  The  little 
bands  (tAat,  subdivisions  of  the  fiovat  men- 
tioned above)  slept  together  on  beds  of 
rushes,  which  they  gathered  by  the  banks 
of  the  Eurotas;  and  to  train  the  boys  to 
greater  hardihood,  no  knives  were  allowed 
Hunting.  to  be  used  for  cutting  them.  The  favourite 
amusement  was  hunting,  for  which  the 
mountain-forests  of  Laconia  gave  abundant 
facilities,  and  the  Spartan  hounds  were  pro- 
verbially famous.  But  the  game  seems 
always  to  have  been  pursued  on  foot ;  for 

Cp«  Miiller,  ii. 


THE  CRYPTEIA.  23 

Xenophon,  in  his  enthusiastic  treatise  called 
KwyycrtKos,  makes  no  mention  of  horses,  nor 
does  he  speak  of  their  use  in  hunting  in  his 
book  ircpl  iTTTrifdfc.  The  evidence  on  which 
Miiller  says  that  "riding  was  one  of  the 
principal  occupations  of  the  youths  of 
Sparta/'  is  very  slight  and  untrustworthy, 
especially  in  the  face  of  the  admitted  in- 
feriority of  the  Lacedaemonian  cavalry.*  In 
fact,  Miiller  himself  points  out  elsewhere 
that  a  preference  for  cavalry,  according  to 
the  principles  of  antiquity,  was  a  proof  of  an 
unstable  and  effeminate  character,  exactly 
the  reverse  of  that  exhibited  by  the  heavy- 
armed  soldiery  of  the  Lacedaemonians. 
On  the  other  hand,  I  think  that  we  may  The  Crypteia. 
fairly  accept  the  explanation  which  he 
gives  of  the  much-abused  KpvTTTtLa,  an  in- 
stitution which,  in  the  way  in  wrhich  Plu- 
tarch (Lye.  28)  describes  it,  is  simply 
incredible.  Megillus,  the  Spartan  inter-  Cp.  Grote,  ii. 
locutor  in  Plato's  Laws,  speaks  as  follows :  I44* 

*  The  expression  of  Xenophon  (Hell.  vi.  4,  10)  is  quali- 
fied :  rolf  &  AaKtdaifJLOviotc  KO.T'  iictlvov  rbv  %pavov  TTOVIJ- 
porarov  1\v  rb  ITTTTIKOV,  and  therefore  should  not  have  been 
referred  to  by  Mr.  Mason  in  his  careful  article  on  Exercitus 
(Greek)  in  Diet.  Ant.  to  prove  the  point ;  but  the  general 
fact  is  unquestioned.  Cp.  Miiller,  ii.  257. 


24  EDUCATION  IN  SPARTA. 

"  There  is,  too,  the  so-called  Crypteia, 
or  secret  service,  in  which  wonderful  en- 
durance is  shown ;  those  who  are  employed 
in  this  wander  over  the  whole  country  by 
day  and  by  night,  and  even  in  winter 
have  not  any  shoes  on  their  feet,  and  are 
without  beds  to  lie  on,  and  have  no  one 
to  attend  them  "  (p.  633  B).  We  may  fairly 
view  this  in  the  light  of  another  pas- 
sage where  the  philosopher,  speaking  in 
the  character  of  the  Athenian,  describes 
the  services  which  he  will  require  of 
the  "  wardens  of  the  country  "  (dypovo/xoi) : 
"Further  at  all  seasons  of  the  year, 
summer  and  winter  alike,  let  them  survey 
minutely  the  whole  country,  bearing 
arms  and  keeping  guard,  at  the  same 
time  acquiring  a  perfect  knowledge  of 
every  locality.  For  there  can  be  no  more 
important  kind  of  information  than  the 
exact  knowledge  of  a  man's  own  country ; 
and  for  this,  as  well  as  for  more  general 
reasons  of  pleasure  and  advantage,  hunt- 
ing with  dogs  and  other  kinds  of  sports 
should  be  pursued  by  the,  young.  The 
service  to  whom  this  is  committed  may 


THE  CRYPTEIA,  25 


be   called    the   secret    police   [fc/ovTrroeJ,   or 

wardens   of  the   country;   the  name   does 

not  much  signify,  but  every  one  who  has 

the  safety  of  the  State  at  heart   will  use 

his    utmost     diligence    in     this     service" 

(p.    763   A.B).      Mr.  Jowett  justly  notices  Vol.  iv.  p.  21 

that  the  crypteia,  as  well   as  the  public 

education,    is    borrowed    by    Plato     from 

Sparta.     It  is  not  unfair,  then,  to  suppose 

that    at    least    the  main    objects    of   this 

"  secret    service"    were    those    on    which 

Plato    lays   most   stress,  that    the    young 

Spartans  might  obtain  an  intimate  know- 

ledge of   their  own  country  for   military 

purposes;    and    that    their   frames    might 

be    hardened    by  exposure    and  vigorous 

exercise.     Of  course  it  is  easy  to  believe 

that  if,  while  ranging  through  the  land, 

they  found  any  traces   of  •  conspiracy,   or 

even  disaffection,  among  the  Helots,  they 

might    resort    to    severe   and  treacherous 

means  of  repression;    but  this  is  a  very 

different  thing  from  Plutarch's  view,  which 

makes   it  out    to   have    been    a  legalised 

system   of   gratuitous   assassination.*     So 

*  Cramer,  in  his  "  Geschichte  der  Erziehung,"  a  book 


26  EDUCATION  IN  SPARTA. 

Tusc.  ii.  14,     Cicero  writes:    "Leges  Lycurgi  laboribus 
34* 

erudiunt  iuventutem  venando,  currendo, 
esuriendo,  sitiendo,  algendo,  aestuando." 
And  no  more  than  a  constant  vigilance  need 
be  understood  by  the  words  of  Thucydides 

(iv,  80-2)  det  yap  TO,  TroXXo.  AaKcSat^uiov/ots  Trpos  rov? 
El'Xwras  rfjs  <f>v\aKr]<s  Trepi  /xaXtorra  /ca$ecm?K€e,, 

Fights.  xhe  words  of  Megillus  immediately  pre- 

ceding   those    already  quoted  —  TO  Trepi  ras 

^'e§g-  P-  633    Kaprcp^crcts  rwv  aAyeSoi/wv  iroXv  'Trap9  -rjp^v  yiyv6jji€vov 
B. 

ev  raTs  ?rpos  aXX^Xov?  raTs  x€P°^  ^xaL^  —  contain  a 

reference  to  a  custom  which  is  described 
by  Cicero  (Tusc.  Disp.  v.  27,  77)  as  exist- 
ing in  his  own  days  :  "  Adolescentium  greges 
Lacedaemone  vidimus  ipsi  incredibili  con- 
tentione    certantis    pugnis,    calcibus,    un- 
guibus,  morsu  denique,  cum  exanimarentur 
iii.  14,  8  ;        prius  quam  victos  se  faterentur."    Pausanias 
Cfldxorrat  ^t     gives  a  still  more  highly-coloured  descrip- 
lal  l^Tn/t?^-   tion,  from   \vhich   it  appears   that  no   act 
vowfff  «  K*?"   °^  violence  was  spared  to  gain  the  victory 
in   t^ese  ferocious   contests,*  which    were 


that  requires  to  be  used  with  much  caution,  identifies  the 
KpwKTiia  with  the  legalisation  of  jcAoflr?/,  but  he  is  probably 
only  following  Miiller  somewhat  carelessly. 

*  Mr.    Jowett's    translation    of    Plato's    expression    by 
"  certain  hand-to-hand  fights,"  if  not  positively  incorrect,  is 


EDUCATION  OF  BOYS.  27 

carried  on  in  an  island  called  Platanistas, 
devoted  to  the  purpose.  It  is  curious,  after 
reading  Pausanias's  description  of  the 
biting  and  kicking  that  were  sanctioned, 
the  bleeding  faces  and  the  eyes  torn  from 
their  sockets,  to  turn  to  Miiller's  comment 
•  that  "  every  unprejudiced  reader "  must 
consider  it  "proved  satisfactorily  that  the 
chief  object  of  Spartan  discipline  was  to 
invigorate  the  bodies  of  the  youth,  without 
rendering  their  minds  at  the  same,  time 
either  brutal  or  ferocious !  "  We  are  much  Vol.  ii.  p.  327. 

more  inclined  to  say,  with  Aristotle,  that  Pol.  v.  (viii.) 

4,  i. 
the  Spartans  were  rendered  brute-like  by 

their  hardships  (ot  Aa/oovcs  Or)pui&€is  cbrepya^oyrai 

TOtS  9IWOIS.) 

But  we    must    pass    from    the    general  Education  of 

the  boys. 

training  and  discipline  of  the  Spartan  boys 
to  their  education,  in  the  narrower  sense 
of  the  term.  In  the  eyes  of  every  Greek, 
education  had  to  deal  with  three  main 

Subjects — ypoLfj.fj.ar a,  fiovo'iKrj  and  TO,  iv  -TraXatorrpa, 

though  often  the  first  and  second  were 
grouped  together  under  the  common  name 

likely  to  mislead  a  reader.  The  essential  point  is  that  no 
weapons  were  allowed  but  fists,  nails,  and  teeth. 


28  EDUCATION  IN  SPARTA. 

Gymnastics.  \  of  pov<riKvj.*  To  gymnastic  exercises  the 
Spartans  were  passionately  devoted,  and 
regarded  them,  with  war  and  the  chase, 

Cp.  Plutarch,  as  the  only  occupations  fit  for  a  freeman. 

i.  116 

(Clough).        But  here    a   distinction   must  be   sharply 

drawn  between  gymnastic  exercises  and 
the  elaborate  training  of  gymnasts.  The 
ancients  never  failed  to  mark  the  differ- 
ence, and  the  Romans,  much  as  they 
practised  the  exercises  of  the  Campus 
Martius,  looked  with  entire  disapproval, 
mingled  with  contempt,  upon  professional 
athletes.f  Gymnasia,  such  as  abounded  in 
the  other  Hellenic  states,  were  unknown 
in  Sparta,  and  it  was  rare  indeed  to  find 
a  Spartan  distinguishing  himself,  except  in 


*  Cp.  Xen.  de  Rep.  Lac.  c.  2.  evQvQ  Si  ir 
dtdaffKaXwv,  fJLa9rj(rojjievovG  Kal  ypa/ufiara,  feat  /iouattcqv  /cat 
rd  kv  iraXaivrpa  :  Plat.  Alcib.  i.  106  E.  UpaOtG  yap  ypa/u- 
fiara  icai  KiOapi&tv  Kal  7ra\aitiv.  Theages  122  E.  OVK 
<r«  6  rrarijp  /cat  iTraidtvfftv  aTrtp  ivQdfa  oi  aXXoi 
Tai  ol  T&V  KaXStv  KayaO&v  Trarkpuv  vitlg,  olov 
Tt  KOI  Ki9api%ttv  Kal  ira\alnv  Kal  ri]V  a\\qv 
dywviav  ; 

f  Cp.  the  passages  from  Plutarch,  Seneca,  and  Silius 
quoted  by  Becker  and  K..  F.  Hermann  in  Charikles,  ii. 
162-164.  The  difference  between  gymnastics  and  the  train- 
ing of  athletes  is  well  brought  out  by  Jacobs  in  his  eloquent 
lecture  (Vermischte  Schriften,  iii.  2,  1  8)  :  "  Erziehung  der 
Hellenen  zur  Sittlichkeit.*'  Cp.  also  Prof.  Mayor's  notes 
on  Quintilian  X. 


GYMNASTICS.  29 

certain  forms  of  competition,  in  the  great 
athletic  festivals.  Plutarch  gives  a  curious 
reason  for  the  prohibition  of  some  kinds 
of  gymnastic  contests  at  Sparta.  "  Lycur- 
gus,"  he  tells  us,  "  being  asked  what  sort  of 
martial  exercises  or  combats  he  approved 
of/'  answered,  "All  sorts,  except  that  in 
which  you  stretch  out  your  hands,"  that  is 
acknowledge  yourself  defeated  ;  because 
it  was  held  to  be  unworthy  of  a  Spartan 
to  ask  for  quarter,  even  in  a  peaceful  en- 
counter. But  a  more  probable  reason  is 
to  be  found  in  the  fact  that  the  special 
excellence  required  for  distinction  in  any 
particular  kind  of  gymnastics  interfered 
with  that  perfect  developement  of  all  the 
physical  powers  which  proved  of  most 
service  in  war.  Euripides,  though  no  Cp.  Paley, 

Euripides,  i. 

friend  to  Spartans  or  their  ways,  certainly  P.  xx. 
expresses  Spartan  views  in  the  curious  frag- 
ment cited  from  his  AvrdAwcos  by  Athenaeus : 
(Frag.  284  Dind.) 

rig  yap  iraXaiffac  cu,  TIQ  WKTVTTOVC  avtfp  The  whole 

r\  diffKov  apag  r)  yvaQov  iraiaaQ  KraXwg  fragment  (28 

TroXft  Trarpwa  ar*<t>avov  fipKffftv  \aj3wv  ;  1CX  1S 

,            ,  worth  cora- 

iroTtpa  paxovvrai  iroXfpiounv  w  ^tpoiv  paring,  from 

SivKovQ  i%ovri£  rj  81%'  derTTi^wv  Troai  this  point  of 

Qiivovrtc  &KQa\ovai  iroXeuiovc  Traroac  :  view. 


30  EDUCATION  IN  SPARTA. 


Gymnasts.  The  fulness  of  flesh  (TToAvcrapKta)  with  which 
we  find  gymnasts  often  taunted,  was  quite 
opposed  to  the  spare  and  slender  "good 
condition"  evc&a,  which,  as  we  have  seen 
above,  was  especially  aimed  at  by  the 
Lacedaemonians.  The  disproportionate 
strengthening  of  the  legs  of  runners  and 
the  shoulders  of  boxers  which  Sokrates 
blames  in  Xenophon's  Symposium  (n.  17), 
would  be  equally  disapproved  by  them  ;  and 
the  careful  attention  to  food  and  drink 
(though  not  always  according  to  the  rules 
of  modern  "training")  which  was  required 
of  athletes,  would  have  run  counter  to 
the  first  principles  of  Spartan  education. 
Hence,  just  as  we  are  told  of  Philopoemen 
by  Plutarch,*  that  he  put  a  stop,  as  far 
as  he  could,  to  athletics  in  Achaea,  so  the 
Lacedaemonians  refused  to  sanction  any 
special  gymnastic  training.  "They  ap- 
pointed no  masters  to  instruct  their  boys 
in  wrestling,  that  they  might  contend,  not 
in  sleights  of  art  and  little  tricks,  but  in 

*  ov  povov  avroQ  Ztyvyt  TO  Trpay/ua  icai  KaT&y&curfv,  a\\a 
Kai  (rrpar»;ywi>  iWepov  art/uat£  Kai  TTpoTTtyXaKKT/Jotf,  offov 


avr<f,  n&ffav         ijfftv  &a€v  a>£  rd 


BOXING.  31 

strength  and  courage/'     It  is  a  little  per-  Plutarch, 

Apophth. 

plexing  to  find,  in  the  face  of  Plutarch's  Lac.  (vol.  i.  p. 

434  Good  win). 

repeated  statements  that  Lycurgus  for- 
bade boxing  as  an  exercise,*  that  in 
Plato  (Protag.  342  B)  the  Laconizers  in 
the  various  Greek  towns  "get  their  ears 
battered  in  boxing,"  in  imitation  of  the 
Spartans,  "  and  bind  the  cestus  round  their 
arms,  and  are  devoted  to  gymnastics 
and  wear  short  cloaks,  just  as  though  it 
were  by  means  of  these  things  that  the 
Lacedaemonians  were  masters  of  Greece/' 
But,  as  in  other  passages  where  the 
"  Laconomania"  is  mentioned,!  there  is 
no  reference  to  gymnastics,  it  is  possible 
that  Plato  had  in  his  eye  certain  individual 
Laconizers  whose  zeal  outstripped  their 
knowledge,  and  who  were  no  more  to  be 
taken  as  fair  representatives  of  Spartan 
customs,  than  some  Anglomaniac  devotees 
of  le  sport  are  to  be  considered  as  repro-  Rep.  Lac.  iv. 
ducing  the  field  of  the  Pytchley  or  the 
Quorn.  The  boxing  of  which  Xenophon 

*  Plutarch,  Lye.  19.   Reg.  Apophth.  125.   Lac.  Apophth. 
225  (Miiller,  ii.  320). 

f  Cp.  Aristoph.  Av.  1282  (with  Kock's  note).    Demosth. 


3 1  ED UCA TION  IN  SPARTA . 

speaks  does  not  appear  to  have  been  an 
exercise,  but  an  angry  fight.  Gladiators, 
too  (oTrXo/Aaxot),  were  forbidden  at  Sparta,* 
partly  because  the  legislator  does  not 
seem  to  have  wished  to  encourage  their 
special  training,  but  also,  we  may  well 
believe,  because  the  use  of  arms  was 
thought  too  serious  a  thing  to  be  allowed 
for  mere  amusement.  But  all  gymnastic 
exercises  which  had  for  their  object  the 
harmonious  developement  of  all  the  bodily 
powers  were  pursued  with  eagerness.  In 
Wrestling.  wrestling  especially  they  excelled,  and 
Xenophon  tells  us  that  they  were  noted 
for  all  forms  of  it  alike,  though  it  is  not 
Cp.  Rep.  Lac.  easy  to  identify  the  various  descriptions 
Schneider's  which  he  mentions.  All  their  exercises 
were  carried  on  under  the  eyes,  not  only 
of  their  appointed  superintendent,  but  also 
of  as  many  of  the  older  citizens  as  chose 
to  be  present,  and  the  emulation  thus 
inspired  was  regarded  as  one  of  the  most 
powerful  motives  that  could  be  brought 


*  Plato  Laches,  183  B.     TOVQ  tv  o7rXo*c 
TOVTOVQ  opw  rr)V  fjikv  Aatcidaifjiova  I'lyovfjiBvovs  tlvai  dfiarov 
lepbv  Kai  oi}di  UKpy  Trodl  £7ri/3aivoyr«£j  K.T.\. 


CHORIC  DANCES.  33 

to  bear  upon  the  youthful  warrior.  By 
this  means  also  boys,  in  what  might  be 
considered  their  hours  of  amusement,  were 
made  to  feel  the  continual  presence  of  a 
restraining  power ; — for  every  adult  citizen 
was  regarded  as  possessing  a  father's  full 
authority  over  the  children  of  the  State,  an 
authority  which,  in  the  absence  of  the  usual 
Paedonomus,  he  might  enforce  by  blows,  xen.  Rep. 
And  as  most  of  these  exercises  seem  to  vi^'. 
have  been  performed  by  the  troops  (l\ai) 
together  and  under  a  common  command, 
they  must  have  greatly  tended  to  produce 
the  effect  at  which  the  Spartan  education 
was  always  aiming,  to  lead  the  individual 
citizen  to  feel  himself  always  closely  en- 
compassed by  a  system  of  rigid  rules,  and 
as  nothing  in  himself,  except  so  far  as  he 
formed  a  unit  in  a  perfect  whole. 

The  same  sense  of   "solidarity"   must  choric dances. 
have  been  powerfully  strengthened  by  the 
choral  dances,  which  were  constantly  prac- 
tised.   The  broad  distinction  between  the  cp. 
passionate  outpourings  of  the  fiery  Lesbian  n< 
school  and  the  grave  high   choric  songs 
of  Alcman  and  Terpsichorus  bears  witness 


34  EDUCATION  IN  SPARTA. 

to  a  deep  distinction  between  the  tribes 
for  whom  they  wrote.  And  the  contrast 
is  not  less  great  between  the  iambics  and 
elegiacs  of  the  Ionian  bards  and  the  spirit- 
stirring  paeans  and  hyporchemes  that  were 
welcome  in  Lacedaemon.  As  "the  vital 
principle  of  the  Lacedaemonian  constitution 
was  harmony,  a  complete  unity  of  interests 
and  feeling  among  the  members  of  the 
privileged  class,  an  absorption  in  fact, 
to  this  extent,  of  the  individual  in  the 

Mure,  ill.  47.  mass,"  so  the  powerful  aid  given  to  this 
by  the  song  and  dance  of  the  chorus  could 
not  be  overlooked.  The  graceful  and 
ordered  motion  of  the  body  in  the  dance 
was  of  itself  no  slight  assistance  to  military 
training;*  but  the  habit  of  acting  rapidly 
in  numbers  in  obedience  to  a  leader  must 
have  been  of  still  more  value.  Hence  we 
are  prepared  to  find  the  origin  of  the 

Cp.  Plato,      Pyrrhich  dance  attributed  to  Sparta ;  and 

Legg.  796  B,       J 

and  other       although   other  authorities  gave  different 

authorities  in 

Muiicr,ii.349.  accounts  on  this  point,  it  is  certain  that 

*  Cp.  the  poet  Socrates  (apud  Athen.  xiv.  p.  628),  sup- 
posed by  Miiller  (ii.  342  n.)  to  be  the  philosopher, 
ot  $t  xojootg  jcaXXicrra  Oiov£  n/uwcnj/,  apiffTOi  sv 


MENTAL  AND  MORAL  TRAINING.  35 

it  was    nowhere  so    long*   and    ardently 

practised.      Lucian   describes  a  dance  of 

the   Spartan   ephebi,  in  which  they  were 

ranged  in  rows  one  behind  another,  and 

danced  to    the    music    of   the    flute,  first 

military  and  then  choral  dances,  chanting 

invocations  to  Aphrodite,  or  exhortations  Lucian  de 

addressed  to  each  other.  In  the  Gymnopae-  Cp.  Mure,  ill. 

dia  the  combination  of  gymnastic  exercises 

and  mimetic  dances  seems  to  have  reached 

its  fullest  developement  ;  and  for  this  time 

only  the  customary  exclusiveness  of  Sparta 

was  relaxed,  for  we  hear  of  great  numbers 

of  strangers  flocking  from  all  parts  to  see  Xen.  Mem. 

the  festivities.     The  O/J/AOS  was  a  favourite 


dance,  in  which  youths   and  girls  joined 
together,  linking  hand  in  hand. 

But  the  subject  of  the  choral  dances  Music* 
naturally  leads  us  to  the  second  great 
branch  of  a  Spartan  education,  that  which 
was  concerned  with  the  mental  and  moral 
training  of  the  children;  for  the  music 
and  song  with  which  the  dance  was  accom- 
panied formed  one  of  the  most  important 

*  Athenaeus  says  that  it  was  danced  at  Sparta  in  his  own 
time  (circ.  A.D.  230). 


36  EDUCATION  IN  SPARTA. 

elements  in  this.  It  is  not  needful  for  the 
present  purpose  that  we  should  plunge  into 
the  technical  and  complicated  mysteries 
of  ancient  Greek  music.  It  is  sufficient 
for  us  to  note  that  music  was  ever  regarded 
among  the  ancients  —  and  especially  among 
the  Greeks  —  as  possessing  a  very  powerful 
moral  influence  for  good  or  evil.  The 
music  that  should  be  allowed  at  Sparta 
was  subject  to  the  severest  official  control  : 
while  all  the  citizens  were  trained  to  take 
their  part  in  the  choric  songs,  the  measures 
to  which  these  should  be  set  were  strictly 
limited  to  grave  and  simple  strains.  The 
Dorian  style  was  always  the  favourite  one,* 
though  other  styles  do  not  appear  to 
have  been  forbidden.  But  when  a  player 
named  Phrynis  attempted  to  perform  on 
a  lyre  with  more  than  the  lawful  number 
of  strings,  one  of  the  ephors  at  once  de- 


*  As  able  aicovovraf  SiarlQtffOai  KaQeffrrjKoruc  p 
TTpoc  trkpav  (Ar.  Pol.  v.  6,  22).  "  The  Dorian  mode  created 
a  settled  and  deliberate  resolution,  exempt  alike  from  the 
desponding  and  from  the  impetuous  sentiments  .....  The 
marked  ethical  effects  produced  by  these  modes  in  ancient 
times  are  facts  perfectly  well  attested,  however  difficult  they 
may  be  to  explain  on  any  general  theory  of  music."  —  Grote, 
"  History,"  ii.  190. 


MUSIC.  37 

stoyed  the  superfluous  chords.  A  similar 
story  is  told  of  Timotheus,  but  it  rests  on 
very  doubtful  evidence.  Aristotle  remarks  Cp.  Person  in 

the  Museum 

that  the  Spartans,  u  though  they  do  not  criticum,  vol. 
learn,  are  yet  able  to  judge  correctly,  as  *' 
they  assert,  what  strains  are  good  and  what 

are  not  good  : "  ov  /xav$avovres  O/LUDS  Svvavrat 
KpLvuv  opOws,  a>s  (fracriy  ra  xprjorra  Kal  ra  pr]  xpr)<rra 

r<3v  /jteX<5v  (Pol.  v.  (viii.)  5,  7);  but  this  assertion 
of  their  neglect  of  the  study  of  music  must 
evidently  be  taken  with  some  limitation : 
either  he  is  thinking  of  skill  in  playing 
musical  instruments,  in  which  case  his 
remark  may  well  be  true  of  the  great  Cp.  Grote,  in. 

73;  Dorians, 

majority  of  the  citizens ;  or  it  may  be,  as  ii.  342. 
Miiller  supposes,  that  in  Aristotle's  time, 
"the  number  of  the  citizens  in  Sparta 
was  so  greatly  diminished,  and  war  occu- 
pied so  much  of  the  public  attention, 
that  the  favourable  side  of  Spartan  dis- 
cipline was  cast  into  the  shade."  But 
the  former  supposition  is  the  more  pro- 
bable ;  for  the  choric  songs  of  the  Spar- 
tans would  naturally  require  much  less 
individual  skill  in  playing  instruments 
than  the  elegies  and  scolia,  which,  as  we 


38  EDUCATION  IN  SPARTA. 

shall  hereafter  see,  were  common   in   the 
Ionian  States.* 
intellectual         Whether  the  Spartan  boys  received  any 

training, 

other  mental  training  than  that  implied  in 
the  study  of  their  choric  songs  is  a  point 
on  which  our  authorities  and  critics  are 
at  variance.  Mr.  Grote  speaks  of  them  as 
"  destitute  even  of  the  elements  of  letters," 
and  bases  his  opinion  mainly  upon  two 
passages  in  the  Panathenaicus  of  Isocrates. 
In  one  of  these  the  fact  is  directly  asserted 

(p.  277j:  ovrot  Sc  roffovrov  airto\£\eip[jilvot  rfjs 
Traicdag    KOI    0tXooro0tac    €i(Tiv    &trr€   OV$ 

fjtav6avov<ru> :  in  another  the  belief  which 
Isocrates  (rightly  or  wrongly)  held  is 
shown,  Mr.  Grote  thinks,  more  unmis- 
takeably,  because  unconsciously,  by  the 
words  (p.  285):  "the  most  rational  Spar- 
tans will  approve  this  discourse,  if  th^y 
find  any  one  to  read  it  to  them."  But 
surely  if  Isocrates  was  capable  of  a  rhe- 
torical exaggeration,  which,  as  Mr.  Grote 

*  Schomann  however  (Griechische  Alterth.  I.2  268)  holds 
that  they  were  taught  both  the  lyre  and  the  flute,  quoting 
Chamaeleon  (apud  Athen.  iv.  84,  p.  184)  as  an  evidence  for 
the  latter  at  any  rate ;  and  rejecting  the  relevance  of  the 
anecdote  in  Plutarch  :  Apophth,  Lac.  39. 


LITERARY  CULTURE,  39 

himself  allows,  deprives  his  testimony  of 
much  of  its  weight,  he  was  capable  also 
of  the  rhetorical  artifice  of  dropping  a 
sneer,  such  as  is  contained  in  the  second 
passage,  in  the  hope  that  it  would  sting 
the  more  for  being  apparently  so  unpre- 
meditated. Nor  can  we  suppose  that  in 
this  t€  wonderful  effusion  of  senile  self- 
complacency"  Isocrates  was  more  careful  to  Dr.  Thomp- 

.  son.Phaedrus, 

observe  historic  accuracy  than  in  his  elabo-  p.  177. 
rate  Panegyricus,  which  teems  with  blunders 
or  exaggerations.  Certainly  a  couple  of 
careless  phrases,  dropped  by  a  garrulous 
rhetorician  in  his  ninety-fifth  year,  ought 
not  to  be  allowed  to  outweigh  the  evidence 
drawn  from  the  constant  references  in 
Herodotus,  Thucydides,  and  Xenophon  to 
written  letters  and  treatises,  without  the 
slightest  hint  that  there  was  any  difficulty 
in  reading  them,  and  from  the  unbroken 
silence  of  Plato  and  Aristotle.  Plutarch's 
evidence  that  Lycurgus  taught  the  Spartans 
letters,  "  in  so  far  as  they  were  required  for 
useful  and  necessary  purposes,"  may  not  in 
itself  carry  great  weight  ;  but  the  well- 
established  practice  of  using  the  scytale 


40  EDUCATION  IN  SPARTA. 

as  a  means  of  communication  between 
the  Spartan  authorities  at  home  and  their 
generals  and  ambassadors,  cannot  be  ex- 
plained away.  In  short,  it  appears  to  me 
that  Colonel  Mure  (Vol.  iii.  App.  K  and  N) 
has  gained  a  victory  over  Mr.  Grote  all 
along  the  line ;  and  that  we  are  bound  to 
admit  at  least  as  much  literary  culture  on  the 
part  of  the  Spartans  as  is  implied  in  the 
words  of  Plutarch.*  But  this  is  confessedly 
very  little ;  and  in  all  but  the  taste  for  choric 
poetry  the  Spartans  must  have  held  as  low 
a  position  in  this  respect  as  was  ever  oc- 
cupied by  any  semi-civilised  nation. 
Moral  Their  moral  training  was  cared  for  far 

training* 

more  sedulously,  and  though  its  range  was 
narrow  and  defective,  within  its  limits  it 
appears,  at  all  events  in  the  better  days 
of  Sparta,  to  have  been  crowned  with 
signal  success.  The  virtues  which  made 
a  man  an  accomplished  warrior  and  a 

•  Mr.  Grote  in  his  "  Plato  "  somewhat  qualifies  the  as- 
sertions made  in  his  History,  and  asserts  only  that  "the 
public  training  of  youth  at  Sparta,  equal  for  all  the  citizens, 
included  nothing  of  letters  and  music,  which  in  other  cities 
were  considered  to  be  the  characteristics  of  an  educated 
Greek,  though  probably  individual  Spartans,  more  or  fewer, 
acquired  these  accomplishments  for  themselves,"  vol.  iii. 
307  ;  cp.  vol.  iii.  p.  1 74. 


MORAL  TRAINING.  41 

devoted  citizen  were  impressed  upon  the 
Spartan  boys  by  all  the  resources  of  an 
elaborate  system  of  national  education ; 
habits  formed  from  his  earliest  years,  the 
keenest  emulation,  the  most  consistent  and 
ever-present  public  opinion,  the  entire  ex- 
clusion of  any  disturbing  element,  were  all 
brought  to  bear  upon  the  future  citizen  to 
make  him  obedient,  frugal,  brave,  and 
self-denying.  And  the  success  of  this 
educational  policy,  so  long  as  the  system 
of  Lycurgus  was  preserved  in  secure  iso- 
lation, was  complete.  All  the  qualities 
requisite  to  gain  dominion  were  attained 
as  they  never  have  been  since.  But  of  the  fts  defects. 
qualities  that  are  needed  to  make  it  a 
blessing  instead  of  a  curse  to  the  subjects, 
of  an  enlightened  and  far-seeing  liberality, 
an  even-handed  justice,  a  wise  and  kindly 
tolerance,  we  nowhere  find  the  existence, 
or  the  desire  for  their  existence.  The  ad- 
mirers of  Sparta  found  abundant  material 
for  their  panegyrics.  Xenophon  delights  De  Rep.  Lac. 
to  describe  the  Spartan  youths  as  "  walk- 
ing along  the  streets  with  their  hands 
folded  in  their  cloaks,  proceeding  in  silence, 


42  EDUCATION  IN  SPARTA. 

looking  neither  to  the  right  hand  nor  to 
the  left,  but  with  their  eyes  modestly  fixed 
upon  the  ground.  There  the  male  sex 
showed  their  inherent  superiority  to  the 
female  sex,  even  in  modesty.  They  were 
as  silent  as  statues  ;  their  eyes  as  im- 
movable as  bronzes,  their  looks  more 
shamefast  than  a  maiden  in  the  bridal 
chamber."  Plutarch  contrasts  their  brief 
sententiousness  and  reverence  for  their 
elders  with  the  loquacity  and  petulance 
of  the  Athenian  striplings.  But  we  can 
never  forget  that  when  the  time  of  trial 
came,  and  Sparta  had  wrested  the  reins 
of  empire  from  Athens,  her  failure  to  hold 
them  and  to  guide  them  wisely  was  far 
more  speedy  and  ignominious  than  that 
of  her  rival.  The  obedience  to  law  which 
had  been  inculcated  in  the  vale  of  the 
Eurotas,  was  forgotten  as  soon  as  the 
Spartan  generals  passed  into  a  wider  field  : 
the  simplicity  and  scorn  of  luxury,  which 
the  whole  of  their  training  had  been  in- 
tended to  produce,  was  changed  into  a 
venality  and  greed  for  gold  almost  un- 
paralleled. Brasidas  was  cut  off  too  soon 


MORAL  INFLUENCES.  43 

to  show  what  he  might  have  become, 
but  even  his  brilliant  career  was  tainted 
with  scandalous  duplicity ;  of  Agesilaus  Thuc.  iv. 
we  know  but  little,  except  from  absurdly 
inflated  panegyrics ;  but  Pausanias,  Gy- 
lippus,  Lysander,  and  many  others  show 
the  same  fatal  weakness  in  the  presence 
of  temptation.  Rarely  has  a  more  mag- 
nificent opportunity  been  offered  to  any 
state  than  that  which  was  given  to  Sparta 
after  the  battle  of  Aegospotami  and  the 
submission  of  Athens  ;  and  rarely  has 
such  an  opportunity  been  more  brutally 
and  wantonly  abused.  And  the  secret  of 
it  lay  in  this :  that  the  Spartan  national 
education  trained  citizens  for  Sparta  and 
not  for  Hellas.  The  duties  of  a  man  to  his 
State  were  diligently  taught ;  the  duties 
of  man  to  man  were  passed  over  in  silence.  Cp.  Cramer, 

_T  .  .       Geschichte 

How  clearly  the  great  philosophical  critics  der  Erzie- 
of  Athens  perceived  these  faults  we  shall        ' 
see  hereafter.      We   must    now  turn   our 
attention  to  two  subsidia  of  the  Spartan 
system    of   education,    which    contributed 
powerfully  to   mould    it,      The    legislator 
fully  recognised  and  attempted  to  regulate 


44  EDUCATION  IN  SPARTA. 

the  influence  exerted  on  the  character  of 

the  young  by  strong  personal  attachments, 

influence  of    and  by  the  power  of  woman.    The  relations 

lowers. 

which  commonly  existed  in  Greece  between 
a  full-grown  man  and  some  favourite  boy 
present  us  with  a  curious  and  often  per- 
plexing subject  of  inquiry.  The  question 
is  one  which  must  be  looked  at  wholly 
from  a  Hellenic  stand-point.  For  the 
union  of  Mediaeval  Catholicism  with  the 
old  Teutonic  reverence  for  woman  gave 
birth  to  a  spirit  of  chivalry,  which  has, 
happily,  never  died  out  of  the  world  in 
later  days.  But  the  influence  of  this  makes 
it  far  more  difficult  for  us  to  throw  ourselves 
back  in  thought  into  the  times  when  it  was 
not  yet  born.  Yet  it  is  certain  that  to  a 
Greek  ardent  feelings  of  devoted  attach- 
ment to  beauty  of  form  and  soul  were  more 
readily  excited  by  a  boy  than  by  a  woman. 
Cp.  the  pas-  Marriage  was  regarded  as  a  civic  duty: 

sages  quoted 

by  Hermann,  and  the  wife  as  the  mother  ot  legitimate 

Privatalt.  .  .  ,  TT   ^ 

p.  232,  2.  children :  the  connection  with  a  Hetaera 
was  mainly  a  matter  of  sensual  pleasure ; 
but  it  was  the  passion  for  a  beautiful  boy 
that  was  looked  upon  as  the  source  of  the 


INFLUENCE  OF  LOVERS.  45 

noblest  inspiration,  and  as  the  keenest 
spur  to  glorious  deeds.  The  Phaedrus  and 
the  Symposium  of  Plato  become  intelligible 
to  us  only  as  we  read  them  in  the  light  of 
this  Hellenic  sentiment  ;  and  the  accounts  Cp.  Grote's 

Plato,  ii.  206 

which  we  have  of  the  relation  of  Socrates  Sqq.    The 

whole  subject 

to  youths  like    Alcibiades   show  us  how  is  discussed 


pure  and  elevating  the  attachment  might  J^e  fulness  by 
be.     It  is  needless  to  touch  upon  the  foul  charikles,  ii. 
and  degrading  vices  which  often  attended 
it  :  it  is  important  for  our  present  purpose 
only  to  notice  that  it  was  neither  originally 
nor  invariably  evil.    And  so  far  as  we  can 
determine  from  our  authorities,  the  custom, 
j  as  it  was  observed  in  Sparta,  was  wholly 
free  from  the  corruptions  which  sometimes 
accompanied  it  in  Athens,  and  which  made 
it  in  Rome  the  source  of  the  most  shame- 
less   abominations.      The    elder    Spartan 
citizens  were   encouraged    to    link  them- 
selves by  the  closest  ties  of  affection  to 
|  particular  boys  or  youths  ;  it  was  regarded 
j  as  disgraceful  if  a  boy  found  no  one  to 
[  take  him  under  his  special  protection  ;  and  Cp.  Cic.  apud 

.r  ,  Serv.  adVerg. 

it  was  a  reproach  to  a  man  if  he  neglected  Aen.  x.  325. 
this  portion  of  his  civic  duties.     But  the 


46  EDUCATION  IN  SPARTA. 

names  that  were  given  to  the  lover  and  the 
loved  one  bear  sufficient  witness  to  the  lofty 
conception  of  their  mutual  relation.    The 
former  was  called  clairviiKas,  he  whose  task 
it  was  to  breathe  into  the  soul  of  his  chosen 
one  the   spirit  of  valour  and  virtue:  the 
latter  was  the  dtrac  or  hearer,  who  had  to 
listen  to  the  words  of   counsel    and  en- 
couragement.    If  a  man  had  entered  into 
such  a  connection,  he  became  responsible 
to  the  State  for  the  conduct  of  his  protege, 
Lycurg.  c.  18.  and  we  are  told  by  Plutarch  that  a  lover 
was  fined   by  a  magistrate,   because   the 
lad  whom  he  loved  cried  out  in  a  cowardly 
fashion  while  he    was    fighting.      But  to 
allow  any  sensual  taint  to  enter  into  this 
Xen.  Rep.      attachment  was   considered  as  extremely 
Cp.  Changes,  disgraceful;  and  we  are  assured  by  several 
Schomann,'    respectable  authorities,  that    no   jealousy 
i.  270 ;  *         was  felt  if  one  man  had  several  favourites, 
ic.    ep.  \  .  or  one  ^y  many  iovers.    We  have  no  right 

then  to  regard  this  feature  of  the  Spartan 
system  as  anything  but  the  legal  recog- 
nition of  what  was  an  inspiriting  aid  to 
the  attainment  of  the  standard  of  virtue 
aimed  at. 


RELATION  OF  THE  SEXES.        4? 
The  same  remark  is  probably  true   of  inflwnce  of 

women. 

the  relation  of  the  sexes  as  established 
by  Lycurgus.  The  main  object  of  the 
training  to  which  he  subjected  girls  as 
well  as  boys — an  object  which  is  stated 
frequently  by  Xenophon  and  Plutarch  with 
a  directness  little  suited  to  modern  feel- 
ings— was  that  they  might  produce  vigor- 
ous offspring.  To  this  end  he  established 
a  discipline  for  girls,  of  which  we  have 
but  fragmentary  notices,  but  which  seems 
to  have  differed  but  little  from  that  pre- 
scribed for  boys.  There  was,  probably, 
the  same  division  into  bands  and  troops, 
the  same  constant  supervision  by  a  ma- 
gistrate of  high  rank,  the  same  simple 
fare  and  scanty  dress,  the  same  rigid 
training  in  gymnastics,  dancing,  and  sing- 
ing. But  what  excited  .most  astonish- 
ment on  the  part  of  the  Ionian  Greeks, 
accustomed  as  they  were  to  the  seclusion 
of  women  in  the  inner  chambers,  and  to 
the  long  and  graceful  Ionian  xi™y>  was 
the  free  mixture  of  youths  and  girls  in 
the  amusements  of  the  games,  and  the 
exposure  of  the  latter,  which  was  not  only 


48  EDUCA  TION  IN  SPARTA  . 

sanctioned  but  encouraged.  Plutarch 
speaks  as  if  the  girls  exercised  entirely 
naked,  but  they  seem  from  other  authori- 


charikles,  ii.    ties  to  have  worn  a  (rxt<TT6c  XITW,  reaching 
Cp.  Miiiler's    to  the  knee,  and  open  on  either  side.     In 

Denkm.  ii. 

118.  any  case,  the  object  of  the  lawgiver  was 

to  train  his  citizens  to  such  healthy  free- 
dom of  intercourse  with  the  other  sex 
that  prurient  thoughts  might  be  excluded 
by  the  absence  of  any  attractive  attempts 
at  concealment;  and  that  youths  and 
maidens  might  mix  together  in  pure  sim- 
plicity. The  experiment  was  hazardous, 
but  the  unanimous  voice  of  all  our  au- 
thorities bears  witness  to  its  success  in 

Cp.  Scho-       this  instance.      The  tone  of   morality  at 

271.  Sparta  would  bear  comparison  with  that 

of  any  other  city  of  Hellas:  we  find  no 
reference  to  a  class  of  prostitutes:  adul- 
tery was  all  but  unknown,  and  jealousy 
extremely  rare.  Love-matches  were  com- 
mon, and  we  have  several  instances  of 

Grote,  ii.  151;  the  most   devoted  conjugal  affection.     It 

Miiller,  ii. 

303-305;  is  true  that  Aristotle  gives  a  picture  far 
from  attractive  of  the  luxury,  pride,  and 
wealth  of  the  Spartan  women  of  his  own 


INFLUENCE  OF  WOMEN.  49 

time;  but  we  cannot  but  believe  that  the 
philosopher  is  generalising  hastily  from  a 
few  notorious  instances ;  and,  in  one  point 
of  his  criticism,  his  censures  of  the 
cowardice  which  he  thinks  they  showed 
during  the  invasion  of  Laconia  by  Epa-  Pintarch  (i. 
minondas,  he  is  clearly  unfair  to  them.  is  indignant 
On  the  whole,  it  appears  that  the  splendid  represJnta- 
vigour  and  beauty,  which  was  universally  Aristotle, 
ascribed  to  the  Spartan  women,*  was  not 
purchased  at  the  cost  of  maidenly  purity 
and  decorum.  But  the  interest  in  manly 
accomplishments  which  their  whole  train- 
ing gave  to  them,  must  have  added 
great  weight  to  their  influence  with  the 
youths;  and  the  hope  of  distinguishing 
himself  under  their  eyes  in  gymnastic 
contests,  must  have  been  one  of  the  most 
powerful  incentives  to  a  youthful  Spar- 
tan. It  was  the  crowning  point  of  the 
Lacedaemonian  training  that,  at  solemn 
feasts,  the  maidens  stood  around,  "now 
and  then  making  by  jests  a  befitting 
reflection  upon  those  who  had  misbehaved 
themselves  in  the  wars,  and  again  sing- 

*  To  this  we  have  frequent  reference  in  the  Lysistrata. 
E 


So  EDUCATION  IN  SPARTA. 

ing  encomiums  upon  those  who  had  done 
any  gallant  action;  and  by  these  means 
inspiring  the  younger  sort  with  an  emu- 
lation of  their  glory.  Those  who  were 
thus  commended  went  away  proud,  elated, 
and  gratified  with  their  honour  among  the 
maidens ;  and  those  who  wore  rallied  were 
as  sensibly  touched  with  it  as  if  they  had 
been  formally  reprimanded;  and  so  much 
the  more,  because  the  kings  and  the 
Plutarch,  i.  elders,  as  well  as  the  rest  of  the  city, 

102   (Clough). 

saw  and  heard  all  that  passed." 

Such  is  a  general  sketch  of  the  theory 
Athenian        and    practice    of    national    education    at 

opinions  of 

this  system,     oparta.     Its  errors  and  defects  have  been 

occasionally  noted  in  passing;    but  these 

brief  notices  may  now  be  supplemented  by 

a  somewhat  more  complete  consideration 

of  the  question,  What  was  the  judgment 

of  contemporaneous  Hellas  on  the  system  ? 

Cp.  Mem.  ill.      Some  there  were,  like  Xenophon,  who 

Butthis  strong  viewed  it  with  an  unmodified  admiration. 

Spartan  tone    ^T  ~ 

disappears  in  Nowhere    in    his    treatise    do  we   find    a 

his  latest  r         .A .    .  TT          A    .« 

work,  De        trace   of   criticism.    He    strikes  the  key- 

Cp.  Grote's  *   note   *n   ^e   ^rst  ^ew   lines :     "  Lycurgus, 
Plato,  iii.  601.  who    gaye    them    the  laws   wheret>y  they 


THE  SPARTAN  SYSTEM  CRITICIZED.  51 

grew  to  prosperity,  I  greatly  admire,  and 
hold  to  have  been  extremely  wise"  («c  ro 

iffXara  pa\a  <ro0oi>  ^yoD/zai),  and   from   this   he 

never  deviates.  Nor  does  he  ever  give 
a  hint  that  the  success  of  this  belauded 
legislation  had  been  less  than  might  have 
been  expected ;  for  the  chapter  "  de  de- 
pravata  Lycurgi  disciplina"  bears  the 
plainest  marks  of  spuriousness.  But  the 
ordinary  judgment  was  not  so  favourable. 
The  way  in  which  the  Spartan  system 
was  looked  upon  by  a  cultivated  Athenian 
may  be  gathered  from  the  magnificent 
speech  of  Pericles,  in  Thucydides  (II. 
35-47)*  Whether  the  words  employed  are 
those  of  the  orator  or  those  of  the  his- 
torian matters  but  little  for  our  present  cp.  Thuc.  i. 
purpose.  Thucydides  is  at  least  as  good 22' '' 
an  authority  as  Pericles  for  the  general 
tone  of  feeling  at  Athens.  We  find  in  the 
Funeral  Speech,  throughout  the  earlier 
chapters,  an  under-current  of  allusion  to 
Spartan  practices,  with  which  the  Athe- 
nian customs  are  contrasted.  The  original 
and  autochthonous  nature  of  the  Athenian 
constitution,  the  absence  of  any  disabili- 


52  EDUCATION  IN  SPARTA. 

ties    arising    from    birth    or    fortune,   the 
spirit    of   liberty  which    regulated    every 
act  of   public    or  private  life,   the  ready 
toleration  of  varying  habits  and  pursuits, 
the    freedom    from    sour    and    censorious 
looks,  the  willing  obedience  from  a  sense 
of   honour  to  the  national  code,  written 
or    understood,   all    are    points    in  which 
Athens  is  praised,  and  Sparta  implicitly 
disparaged.      The  orator  dwells  on  their 
full  enjoyment  of  the  festivities,  which  the 
Dorians  ridiculed,  and  of  the  luxuries  of 
every  clime,  attracted  to  their  capital  by 
its   splendour  and   its  fortunate  position. 
Strangers  are  gladly  welcomed,  and  alien 
acts  unknown.    Their  fondness  for  art  is 
free  from  extravagance,  their  love  of  letters 
does  not  disable  them  for  war  or  business. 
Above  all,  they  do  not,  as  their  rivals  do, 
set  out  in  pursuit  of  manly  prowess  by 
a  long  and  toilsome  process  of  training; 
yet,  though  living  at  their  ease,  they  are 
as    ready  to    meet  dangers  as   any  one, 
happily  combining  chivalrous  daring  with 
a    careful    calculation    of    the    expedient 
course.    And  thus  a  double  advantage  is 


PL  A  TaS  JUDGMENT  OF  IT.        5  3 

gained  ;  they  do  not  suffer  from  the  dread  of 
impending  dangers,  nor  do  they  yield  in 
courage  to  the  slaves  of  a  life-long  drill. 
Whatever  the  pedant  might  say,  the 
practical  statesman  had  little  doubt  that 
the  boasted  system  of  Lycurgus  sacrificed 
the  noblest  parts  of  the  nature  of  man 
to  secure  in  lower  regions  a  superiority 
that  was  at  best  but  doubtful.  Though 
here  the  orator  does  less  than  justice  to 
Lacedaemon.  Whether  the  cost  was  not 
too  great  at  which  her  pre-eminence  in 
arms  was  purchased,  is  another  question; 
but  it  cannot  be  doubted  that  it  was  re- 
cognised and  admitted  as  a  rule  in  Greece  ; 
and  few  were  ashamed  to  confess  them- 
selves inferior  in  military  skill  and  dis- 
cipline to  the  consummate  craftsmen  and 
professors  of  military  science  (axpot  rt^yirvn  Cp.  Grote,  H. 

icai  <700t0rai 


Plato    seems    to    have    been    strongly  Plato's  admi- 
attracted  by  the  ordinances  of  Lycurgus.  ™ 
They  furnished    him  a   concrete  instance 
on  which  to  base  his  ideal  structure.    At 
Sparta    that    absolute    supremacy   of   the 
State  in  every  detail  of   the    life  of   the 


54  EDUCATION  IN  SPARTA. 

citizen,  which  he  laid  down  as  his  funda- 
mental postulate,  was  actually  carried  into 
Plato,  ill.  210.  effect.  As  Mr.  Grote  says,  to  an  objector 
who  had  asked  him  how  he  could  pos- 
sibly expect  that  individuals  would  submit 
to  such  an  unlimited  interference  as  that 
which  he  enjoined  in  his  Republic,  he 
would  have  replied :  "  Look  at  Sparta.  You 
see  there  interference  as  constant  and 
rigorous  as  that  which  I  propose,  endured 
by  the  citizens,  not  only  without  resist- 
ance, but  with  a  tenacity  and  long  con- 
tinuance such  as  is  not  found  among 
other  communities  with  more  lax  regu- 
lations. The  habits  and  sentiments  of  the 
Spartan  citizen  are  fashioned  to  these 
institutions.  Far  from  being  anxious  to 
shake  them  off,  he  accounts  them  a  ne- 
cessity as  well  as  an  honour."  But  though 
he  had  much  sympathy  with  the  Spartan 
institutions,  and  based  his  own  schemes, 
as  stated  in  the  Republic  and  the 
Laws,  more  upon  them  than  upon  any 
other  existing  system,  still  he  was  not 
wholly  blind  to  its  defects.*  His  criti- 
*  Mr.  Jowett  defines  the  Republic  as  "  the  Spartan  con- 


PLATO'S  CRITICISMS.  55 

cisms  are  to  be  found  mainly  in  the  first  Plato's 
book  of  the  Laws,  where  the  Athenian 
examines  the  constitutions  of  Crete  and  P.  633. 
Sparta.  The  principal  points  of  his  cen- 
sure are  the  preference  of  war  to  peg.ce, 
and  the  direction  thus  given  to  the 
whole  course  of  education,  the  neglect  of 
music  in  favour  of  gymnastic  exercises, 
the  license  which  existed  among  the 
Spartan  women,  and  the  yet  greater  p.  637  B 
evils  which  arose  from  the  close  in- 
timacy of  the  gymnasia  and  the  common 
feasts.  He  pronounces  that  Lacedaemon  p.  636. 
had  no  institutions  to  strengthen  her 
citizens  against  the  temptations  of  plea- 
sure, and  that  the  value  of  festive  inter- 
course, as  a  revealer  of  the  character 
of  men,  was  wholly  lost  sight  of.  In 
the  second  book  he  finds  fault  with  the 
exclusive  attention  paid  to  choral  music: 
"Your  young  men,"  he  says  to  Megillus, 
the  Spartan,  "  are  like  wild  colts,  feeding 
in  a  herd  together;  no  one  takes  the 
individual  colt  and  rubs  him  down,  and 

stitution  appended  to  a  government  of  philosophers  "  (Plato, 
iv.  20),  and  there  is  as  much  truth  in  this  as  there  usually  is 
in  an  epigram. 


56  EDUCATION  IN  SPARTA. 

tries  to  give  him  the  qualities  which  would 
make  him  a  statesman  as  well  as  a 
soldier."  They  ought  to  have  been  taught 
that  courage  was  not  the  first  of  the 
virtues,  as  Tyrtaeus  had  ranked  it,  but 
only  the  fourth,  and  lowest  among  the 
cardinal  virtues.  On  the  other  hand, 
Plato  heartily  commends  in  the  Spartan 
system  of  national  education  the  impor- 
tance attached  to  obedience,  and  the  slight 
regard  for  wealth,  the  care  taken  of  mar- 
riages, and  the  reverence  paid  to  elders. 

What  his  own  views  were  on  the  train- 
ing of  the  youth  of  a  nation,  we  shall  have 
to  consider  more  fully  hereafter. 

Aristotle   in  his   criticism  of  the  Spar- 

criticisms. 

tan  constitution  (Polit.  II.  9)  touches  but 
slightly  on  the  method  of  education;  but 
he  fully  accepts  the  judgment  of  Plato, 
as  expressed  in  his  Laws,  that  fault  may 
be  justly  found  with  the  fundamental 
principle  (vTroflceric)  of  the  legislator,  inas- 
much as  the  whole  system  of  his  laws  is 
directed  towards  the  cultivation  of  a  part 
Pol.  if,  o,  34.  only  of  virtue,  that  which  secures  supre- 
macy in  war.  Hence,  as  he  says,  "they 


ARISTOTLE'S  CRITICISMS.         57 

were  preserved  in  a  healthy  condition 
while  they  were  at  war,  but  they  fell  into 
ruin  when  they  had  won  the  supremacy 

(cffw^owo  p,cv  TToXc/iovvrcc,  dirw>\\WTO  Si.  apZavrtc). 

In  another  passage  he  censures  their  extreme 
devotion  to  gymnastics,  which  left  their 
children  untaught  in  all  the  points  essen- 
tial to  man,  the  most  necessary  rudiments 
of  intellectual  training  ;  thus,  XtW  cfe  Tavra 

avcvrcs     TOWS    TTtttSas,    KCU    TWV   dvayKauov    a7rai8aya>- 

Troiijcravrcs     ^Savavcrous    Karcpya^orTai     Kara  Pol.  v.  (viii.) 

But  it  is  noteworthy  that  the 


other  main  point  in  which  the  Spartan 
national  education  seems  so  defective  to 
the  judgment  of  modern  Christian  Europe, 
namely,  that  so  large  a  portion  of  the  nation 
was  excluded  from  its  benefits,  is  specially 
chosen  out  by  Aristotle  for  approval.  For, 
he  says,  freedom  from  the  necessity  of 
attention  to  the  first  requisites  of  life  on 
the  part  of  the  citizens,  is  one  of  the 
most  important  notes  of  a  well  -organized 
community.  A  subject  population,  living  in  Pol.  ii.  9,  2. 
ignorant  slavery  or  serfage,  is  regarded  by 
him  with  a  complacency  which  is  strangely 
foreign  to  our  own  ideas  of  justice. 


5«  EDUCATION  IN  SPARTA. 

Only,  he  adds,  it  is  difficult  to  know  how 
to  deal  with  such;  for  if  you  treat  them 
kindly  they  wax  wanton,  but  if  they  are 
treated  with  severity  you  must  always 
be  on  your  guard  against  conspiracy  and 
revolt.  The  account  which  Aristotle  gives 
us  of  the  cowardly,  domineering,  and  ava- 
ricious spirit  engendered  in  the  Spartan 
women,  by  what  he  considers  their  lax 
and  disorderly  training,  has  been  already 
touched  upon. 

On  the  general  question  of  Spartan 
education  there  is  little  to  be  added  from 
our  modern  stand-point  to  the  criticisms 
of  the  philosophers  of  Athens.  The  evils 
arising  from  a  discipline  so  narrow  in  its 
aims  and  so  unnatural  in  its  processes, 
cannot  be  felt  or  described  more  forcibly 
than  was  the  case  with  Plato  and  Aris- 
Further  totle.  But  we  may  be  permitted  to 

defects.  . 

notice  one  point  on  which  they  do  not 
dwell.  It  was  death  to  a  Spartan  to 
leave  his  country  without  permission ;  and 
this  is  a  significant  fact.  The  Spartan 
discipline  was  possible  only  so  long  as 
all  the  citizens  subjected  to  it  were  kept 


ITS  DEFECTS.  59 

in  narrow  isolation  from  the  rest  of  Hellas. 
The  £€V7)\a<rta  of  Lacedaemon,  which  seemed 
so  repulsive  to  the  rest  of  the  Greeks,  was 
simply  a  needful  measure  of  self-preserva- 
tion. In  the  presence  of  those  who  lived 
by  other  and  laxer  rules,  a  Spartan  felt 
bewildered;  the  only  law  he  knew  was 
the  law  of  his  country,  and  if  strangers 
had  been  permitted  to  settle  in  Laconia 
the  same  result  must  have  followed  there 
which  we  find  in  almost  every  case  in 
which  a  Spartan  was  absent  for  any  long 
time  from  his  fatherland.  The  ties  of  the 
law  in  which  he  had  been  educated  were 
broken,  and  no  others  were  found  to  take 
their  place;  so  that  he  fell  into  a  law- 
lessness which  was  rarely  if  ever  rivalled 
by  the  citizens  of  less  rigidly  organized  Cp.  Curtius,  i. 

204,  and  again 

communities.  Not  only  were  the  aims  of  1.211. 
the  Spartan  education  low  and  unworthy, 
but  also  they  required  for  their  attainment 
external  conditions  which  were  wholly  in- 
consistent with  the  free  and  full  develope- 
ment  of  the  life  of  the  nation  and  of  the 
individual  citizens. 


CHAPTER  II. 

NATIONAL  EDUCATION  AT  ATHENS. 


Athens  com-    BSjBBIE  pass  into  a  wholly  different  air 

pared  with        WfftS[ 

Sparta.  \  KifcaM!    when  we  turn  from  the  banks 


of  the  Eurotas  to  the  slopes 
of  Hymettus.  The  sun  is  as 
bright  and  the  breeze  as  healthy;  tut 
there  is  a  dainty  clearness  in  the  sky* 
that  was  wanting  in  the  shadow  of  Tay- 
getus,  and  the  many-dimpling  sparkle  of 
the  ocean  seems  to  lend  a  brightness  to 
the  heaven  under  which  it  is  smiling.  As 
the  lofty  mountain-wall  which  hems  in 
Laconia  on  every  side  but  that  which  is 
guarded  by  a  cliff-bound  coast  seemed 
destined  to  preserve  the  Spartans  in  a 


*  The  infinite  charm  of  the  Athenian  air  has  been  nowhere 
more  gracefully  set  forth  than  by  Dr.  Newman,  "  Historical 
Sketches,"  pp.  20-22. 


ATHENS  AND  SPARTA.  61 

rigid    isolation,  so    the  "highway   of   the  Cp.  Pictet, 

Les  Aryas 

nations,"   to  which    the    peninsular    form  Primitifs,  i. 
and  excellent  harbours  of  Attica  gave  such  Curtius, 

-      Grundziige, 

easy  access,  appeared  to  attract  its  autoch-  3W. 
thonous  people  to  a  richly-cultured  and 
manifold  life.  As  in  the  garrison-city  of 
Sparta  the  State  held  absolute  lordship 
over  every  citizen,  from  the  cradle  to  the 
grave,  so — 

Where  on  the  ^Egean  shore  the  city  stood, 
Built  nobly, 

the  true  Hellenic  principle  of  the  fullest 
and  freest  developement  of  the  individual, 
ruled  every  civic  ordinance.  It  is  evident  NO  state 

p  .     education  at 

that  a  national  system  of  education,  in  Athem. 
the  strictest  sense  of  the  term,  would  have 
been  wholly  foreign  to  the  genius  of  the 
State.  To  force  every  citizen  from  child- 
hood into  the  same  rigid  mould,  to  crush 
the  play  of  the  natural  emotions  and 
impulses,  and  to  sacrifice  the  beauty  and 
joy  of  the  life  of  the  agora,  or  the  country 
home,  to  the  claims  of  military  drill,  were 
aims  which  were  happily  rendered  need- 
less by  the  position  of  Attica,  as  well  as 
distasteful  to  the  Athenian  temperament. 


62          EDUCA  TION  AT  A  THENS. 

And  yet,  on  the  other  hand,  we  are  not 
to  suppose  that  —  at  least  in  the  better 
days  of  the  State  —  the  liberty  which  was 
readily  conceded  was  allowed  to  pass  into 
unrestricted  license.  If  the  methods  by 
which  a  father  should  train  his  children 
were  not  rigidly  prescribed  by  the  State, 
at  least  the  object  to  be  attained  was  set 
before  him,  and  not  only  the  force  of 
public  opinion,  but  also  the  positive  con- 
trol of  law  and  judicial  authority,  was 
brought  to  bear  on  him  to  secure  its  ac- 
complishment. If  there  was  no  common 
discipline,  at  least  there  were  definite 
laws  requiring  that  every  child  should  be 

Plato,  Crito,    trained  in  the  two  great  branches  of  Greek 
50  E. 

education,  fumo-nty  and  yv/xvaoTiKi/.    And  so 


long  as  it  retained    its   original   powers, 

the  court  of  Areopagus  was  charged  with 

the  enforcement  of  the  laws  in  this  respect. 

isocratescom-  Quintilian  (v.  9,  13)  tells  us  that  they  even 

plains  bitterly 

of  the  disuse    condemned  to  death  a  boy  who  had  torn 

of  this  super-  1  ,  f  ,.  . 

vision  on  the  out  the  eyes  of  his  quails  ;  and  according 
to  Athenaeus  (iv.  6)  two  youths  were 
brought  up  before  them,  charged  with 
attending  the  lectures  of  philosophers 


AMUSEMENTS  OF  CHILDREN.      63 

without  having  any  visible  livelihood.  In- 
stances like  this,  which  might  be  mul- 
tiplied, show  that  the  supervision  exercised 
was  not  merely  nominal. 

At  first  children  were  left  wholly  to  the  Amusements 

.  ,  of  children. 

care  of  their  mothers  and  nurses,  and  the 
diligence  of  scholars  like  Becker  and 
Hermann  has  gathered  many  interesting 
particulars  of  their  modes  of  training.  Toys  Cp.  Hermann, 

f  j  ^i        r         Privatalterth. 

of  many  kinds  are  mentioned — rattles  (see  pp.  261-268. 

p.  1 8),  toy  carts,*  and  beds,  dolls   of  wax 

and  clay,  hoops,  and  tops ;  several  games 

are   noticed,   such    as    flying    cockchafers 

and    blind-man's    buff ;  f    and    stories    of  Cp.  Ar.  Nub. 

«  .     ,  .£  •  763  (Kock), 

various  kinds,  terrific   or    amusing,  were  and  Schoi.  on 
employed  to  frighten  the  children  out  of 
mischief,^  or  to  keep  them  in  good  humour. 
As  soon  as  the  children  grew  too  old  to 

*  Ar,  Nub.  863  ;  cp.  877-881. 

f  Cp.  Pollux,  ix.  122.  »7  8k  X«X«^  fiuta,  raiviq,  ra>  600aX^u/ 
ir€pi(T0»y£at'7*€£  ivb$  Trcudoc,  6  /uci>  7T£pierrps0erai  Krjpvrrtttv' 
XaXicqy  fAvlav  Orjpdau*  oi  8k  aTrojcptva/icvoi,  OrjpdoftG  aXX*  ov 
XT/X//CI,  ffKvrtai  )8v/3Xivoif  vaiovoiv  aiirbv,  ewj  TIVOQ  avrwv 
Xiy^trat.  (For  6<jTpaKiv8a  cp.  Phaedr.  241  B  with  Dr. 
Thompson's  note). 

J  Chrysippus  blames  those  who  would  deter  men  from  sin 
by  the  fear  of  punishment  from  the  gods — wg  ovdkv  diafspov- 
rac  ?">)c  'AKKOVG  Kai  r^C  'AX^iroiJc,  8i  a»v  rd  Tratcdpia  row 
KaKoffxoXtlv  ai  yvvaiKig  diriipyovoiv. 


64          EDUCA TION  AT  A THENS. 
Tht  slave-       be  managed  any  longer  by  their  mothers 

attendants. 

and  nurses,  they  were  placed  under  the 
care  of  TratSayoryot.*  The  primary  duty  of 
these  slave-attendants  was  to  conduct  the 
children  to  the  public  schools,  but  they 
had  also  entrusted  to  them  a  general 
supervision  of  their  conduct,  and  espe- 
cially of  their  manners  and  deportment 
(ev/cooTu'a) ;  and  they  appear  even  to  have 
inflicted  personal  chastisement.f  They 
would  be  naturally  chosen  from  the  most 
honest  and  trusted  members  of  the  house- 
hold, but  as  a  rule  they  possessed  little  or 
no  literary  accomplishments  themselves. 
Plutarch  is  very  indignant  at  the  careless- 

*  Cp.  an  amusing  passage  in  Lucian  Hermotim.  82  :  Inti 
Kal  al  rirOat  TOtadt  \iyovai  irfpi  rwv  iratSiwv,  W£  a-mrkov 
avToiq  Eg  8iSa<JKa\ov*  Kal  ycip  O.T  prjStTrai  ftaOfiv  dyaOov  TI 
SvvwvTat,  a\\'  ovv  tyauXor  ovSkv  iroirjffovfftv  €<€i  /ilvovr«f. 
Cp.  Ussing,  Darstellung,  &c.  pp.  68-73,  anc*  Lightfoot  on 
Gal.  iii.  24. 

t  The  Trai^cyuiyfiov  mentioned  by  Demosthenes  (de  Cor. 
p.  313)  was  probably  a  wai':ing-room,  devoted  to  the  use  of 
the  slave-attendants  [so  Hermann  in  Charikles,  ii.  p.  21  and 
Simcox,  ad  loc.~\\  Mr.  Holmes  (with  Pollux,  iv.  19)  takes 
it  to  mean  simply  the  schoolroom,  but  this  meaning  weakens 
the  force  of  the  passage  ;  and  is  there  any  authority  for  bis 
assertion  that  iraitiaywybc  sometimes  is  used  in  the  wider 
sense  of  "  tutor  ?  "  All  the  instances  of  this  usage  that  I 
have  been  able  to  discover,  belong  to  a  later  time  than  that 
of  Demosthenes.  (Cp.  Hermann,  Privatalterth.  p.  276,  19). 


THE  PEDAGOGUES.  65 

ness  which  some  parents  in  his  day  showed 
in  the  choice  of  their  "pedagogues,"  en- 
trusting the  care  of  their  children  only  to 
such  slaves  as  were  unfit  for  any  other 
occupation.*  The  age  at  which  the  chil- 
dren were  committed  to  the  pedagogues 
cannot  have  been  fixed  very  rigidly  ; 
much  would  depend  upon  their  own  char- 
acter and  developement,  and  much  upon 
the  position  of  their  parents ;  for,  as  Plato 
says  (Protagor.  p.  326),  the  sons  of  rich 
men  would  go  to  school  earlier  than 
those  of  others,  and  remain  there  longer. 
But  from  several  passages  of  Plato  and 
Aristotle  it  seems  probable  that  the  usual 
age  for  commencing  to  attend  school  was 
about  seven  years,  and  that  for  two  or 
three  years  after  that  the  children  learnt 
little  or  nothing  but  gymnastics.  There 
is  no  reason  to  believe  that  the  schools 
received  any  subvention  from  the  State ;  f 

*  Morals,  i.  p.  9  (Goodwin).  Cp.  Plato,  Alc.i.  p.  122  B. 
(foi  #€,  it)  *AXic.  n*pf/c\i/c  liriffrrjir  iraitiaywybv  rwv  ouctru»i> 
TQV  dxpeiorarov  virb  yqpo>ff ;  and  Lysis,  ad  fin.,  where  the 
pedagogues  appear  as  very  boorish.  Ussing  notices  that 
where  they  are  represented  on  monuments  they  have  barbaric 
features  and  dress  (p.  67).  Cp.  Stark's  Niobe  u.  Niobiden, 
PI.  ii.  iv.  vii.  xvi.  xix. 

t  Cp.  [Plato]  Alcib.  i.  p.  122  B.     rijs  81  ofa  y«v! <rt we,  ti 


66          EDUCATION  AT  ATHENS. 
Cp.  Laws,  p.   they  appear  to  have  been  without  exception 

794  and  Ar. 

Pol.  iv.  (vii.),  "  private  venture  "  schools,  and,  as  might 

17.    I  follow  . 

here  Hermann  have  been  expected,  of  very  various  degrees 

in  Charikles,        . 

ii.  23,  rather    ot    merit.      Demosthenes,   when    taunting 

mann,  Gr!      Aeschines  with  the  lowness  of  his  origin, 

5*9'      speaks  of  the  school  kept  by  the  father 

of  the  latter  in  terms  of  great  'contempt  : 

Si3acrjCQ>v  ypa/i/xara,  a>s  eyw  TWJ/  irp€<Tpvr(.p<av  drove), 

TT/3OS  TO)  TOW  "Hpd)  TOU  loLTpOVy  oV(tf$  cSvVttTO,  oAA*  0?V  & 

TavT#  y€  Ifij.  But  in  the  speech  de  Corona  he 
claims  for  himself  that  when  he  was  a  boy  he 
went  to  suitable  schools.  What  the  custom- 
ary fees  were  we  have  no  means  of  knowing  ; 
for  the  charges  of  rhetoricians  and  sophists 
—  which  are  frequently  mentioned—  give  us 
no  clue  to  the  practice  in  ordinary  day- 
schools.*  But  though  they  were  not  sup- 
ported by  the  State,  they  were  subject  to 
a  rigorous  official  supervision,  at  least,  so 
far  as  the  character  of  the  teachers  and  the 
regulations  of  the  school  were  concerned. 


t7,  teat  rpo<pijc,  icac  irai&tag,  ^  aXXov  OTOVOVV  'A0iy- 
vaiuv,  utf  ITTOC  tiirtiv,  ovdtvi  fts\£«. 

*  Dem.  F.  L.  p.  419  (p.  158  ed.  Shilleto).  Cp.  de  Cor. 
p.  313,  where  we  have  some  curious  details  on  the  "  interior  " 
of  a  school  at  Athens.  From  Ar.  Nub.  965,  it  is  evident 
that  they  were  spread  over  the  various  districts  (icw/4ai)  of 
the  city. 


ATHENIAN  SCHOOLS.  67 

Aeschines  (in  Timarch.  §§  9,  10)  says  :  "The 
lawgiver  shows  a  certain  distrust  of  the 
teachers,  to  whom  of  necessity  we  commit 
our  children,  though  their  livelihood  de- 
pends upon  their  character  for  morality, 
and  the  loss  of  this  would  reduce  them  to 
beggary;  for  he  explicitly  ordains  in  the 
first  place  the  hour  at  which  a  free-born 
boy  is  to  come  to  the  school,  and  secondly 
the  number  of  boys  with  whom  he  is  to  be 
taught,  and  when  he  is  to  leave;  and  he 
forbids  teachers  to  open  their  schools,  or 
trainers  their  wrestling-grounds,  before 
sunrise,  and  orders  them  to  close  them 
before  sunset,  feeling  the  greatest  distrust 
of  solitude  and  darkness;  and  he  ordains 
who  are  to  be  the  boys  who  frequent  these 
schools,  and  what  is  to  be  their  age,  and 
what  magistrate  is  to  superintend  them/'  * 
But  we  have  no  means  of  knowing  to  what 
magistrate  this  duty  was  allotted.  We  find 
at  Athens  no  muSovofMH,  such  as  existed  in 


*  Some  additional  details  are  added  by  the  laws  quoted 
in  §  12,  but  their  genuineness,  as  is  the  case  with  most  of 
those  quoted  by  the  orators,  is  open  to  the  gravest  suspicion. 
Cp.  Franke's  edition  and  K.  F.  Hermann  in  Charikles,  ii. 

p.  21. 


68  EDUCA TION  AT  A THENS. 

Sparta  and  elsewhere ;  and  though  in  later 

times  we  have  mention  of  o-uxfrpovHrraC,  Koo-pryrai 

and  vTTOKWTfjLrjrai,  who  exercised  a  control 
over  the  gymnasia,  these  seem  to  belong 
entirely  to  the  period  when  Athens  had 
become  the  University  of  the  Roman 
Empire,  and  its  schools  were  thronged 
by  students  from  every  province.*  To  such 
Aims  of  schools,  then,  did  the  Athenian  boys  resort 

education. 

from  an  early  age  to  be  taught  the  limited 
curriculum  which  was  then  regarded  as 
furnishing  the  needful  training  for  a  citizen. 
It  is  noteworthy  that  we  find  in  Athens 


*  Cp.  SchSmann  Griech.  Alterth.  i.  p.  525.  Of  the  ITTIJU- 
Xijrai  T&V  Itynfiw  mentioned  by  Dinarchus  (Hermann  Pol. 
Ant.  §  150,  4),  we  know  next  to  nothing;  the  allusion  in 
Dem.  Fals.  Leg.  p.  433,  is  very  vague,  and  need  not  refer  to 
any  special  magistracy  (cp.  however  Bockh,  Public  Economy, 
book  ii.  c.  xvi.) ;  and  the  genuineness  of  Plato's  Axiochus  is 
much  too  doubtful  to  allow  us  to  argue  anything  from  the 
expressions  in  p.  367  A.  On  the  University  character  of 
Athens  at  a  later  time  cp.  Dr.  Newman's  Historical  Sketches, 
cc.  iii.  iv.  vi.  vii.,  and  especially  Neubauer's  Commentationes 
JSpigraphicae,  with  the  review  by  Mr.  E.  L.  Hicks  in  Aca- 
demy, I.  141.  But  that  it  was  already  beginning  to  assume 
this  character  is  shown,  not  merely  by  phrases  like  KOIVOV 
iratSivrfjoiov  iraatv  avQpwiroic  (Diod.  xiii.  27)  and  "  Sal- 
vete  Athenae,  quae  nutrices  Graeciae"  (Plaut.  Stich.  649 — 
probably  preserved  from  the  original  by  Menander),  but  also 
from  [^Eschin.]  Epist.  xii.  699.  icat  ercpot  ji£v,  we  Ioi 
favTtav  iraWac,  rove  ^  *v  Boitoriy,  ytvvijOevTaf  fj 
i  ri)$  avroOi  ircuctia 


THE  AIMS  OF  EDUCATION.        69 

a  clear  comprehension  of  the  essential 
character  of  liberal  education.  The  deluded 
endeavour  after  "practical  utility,"  which 
proves  so  misleading  to  much  of  the  popular 
education  of  our  own  day,  was  then  un- 
known, or  known  only  to  be  branded  as 
unworthy  and  contemptible.  No  special 
training  was  given  for  special  needs  in 
after  life  ;  the  Athenians  judged  aright  that 
the  acquirements  needed  for  particular 
trades  or  professions  might  safely  be  left 
to  be  gained  at  a  later  stage  by  those  who 
intended  to  make  use  of  them.*  But  the 
teaching  which  the  nation  encouraged,  if 
it  did  not  prescribe  it,  aimed  at  some- 
thing better  than  the  production  of  "  com- 
mercial men;"  it  endeavoured  to  give  the 
free  and  general  culture  becoming  to  a 
citizen  of  the  "school  of  Hellas."  As 
Aristotle  says,  "to  be  always  in  quest  of 
what  is  useful  is  by  no  means  becoming  to 
high-minded  gentlemen  "  (TOW  /AeyoAo^vxois  *cal 


*  Cp.  Curtius,  ii.  417,  and  Hermann  in  Charikles,  ii.  32, 
"  der  Unterricht  .  .  .  gerade  eine  Erhebung  iiber  die  Banausic 
des  alltaglichen  Bedarfes  bezweckte."  Cp.  also  Wittmann, 
Erziehung  und  Unterricht  bei  Platon,  p.  9.  Hippocrates 
in  the  Protagoras  says  that  he  learnt  music  and  gymnastics 
—  ouic  lirl  T€%vy  aXX'  iwi 


70          EDUCA  TION  AT  A  THENS. 

Pol.  v.  (viii.)  rots  €\€v0€pois).  Its  subjects  were  limited  in 
range,  but  they  gained  in  depth  and 
thoroughness  more  than  they  lost  in  ex- 
tent. "  The  mental  culture  was  but  plain 
and  simple,  yet  it  took  hold  of  the  entire 
man:  and  this  all  the  more  deeply  and 
energetically,  inasmuch  as  the  youthful 
mind  was  not  distracted  by  a  multiplicitous 
variety,  and  could,  therefore,  devote  a  pro- 
portionately closer  devotion  to  the  mental 
food,  and  to  the  materials  of  culture  offered 
to  it."  (Curtiusii.  416.)* 

Reading  and       In   "  music  "  the  first  stage,  of  course, 

writing* 

was  the  study  of  y/oa/^iara,  which  included 


*  In  the  following  sketch  of  the  subjects  of  education,  it 
must  be  remembered  that  they  were  strictly  confined  to  boys. 
The  education  given  to  Athenian  girls  is  adequately  summed 
up  in  the  words  of  Ischomachus  in  Xenophon's  Oeconomicus, 
c.  vii.  5.  Socrates  asks  him  whether  he  had  himself  trained 
(ivaiSfvffa^)  his  wife  to  be  as  she  ought  to  be,  or  whether 
when  he  received  her  from  her  father  and  mother  she  knew 
how  to  discharge  all  her  duties.  A  nd  Ischomachus  replies  : 
jcat  ri  av  iwiiTTtipivTiv  a6ri)v  irapt\a(3ovs  %  trrf  plv  ovirw 
yeyovina  rj\9t  irpoc  !/«,  rbv  $'  ipirpoffBtv 
vrrb  iro\\w  iirt/ieXetac  oir<o£  %\d\i9Ta  /uv  o\//otro, 
W"°iTOt  ^Xaxtffra  &  epoiro  ;  "  Why  what 
could  she  have  known,  when  I  married  her  ?  She  was  not 
fifteen  years  of  age  when  she  came  to  me,  and  during  the 
whole  of  the  time  before  her  marriage  great  pains  had  been 
taken  with  her  that  she  might  see  as  little  as  possible,  bear  as 
little  as  possible,  and  ask  as  little  as  possible."  Then  follows 
a  very  pretty  sketch  of  the  way  in  which  he  taught  her  various 
duties, 


READING.  71 

reading  and  writing.    Whether  arithmetic 

was  added  in    the    Athenian  schools,   as 

Plato  (Laws,  vii.  819)  wished  it  to  be  in 

his  ideal  State,  seems  to  Hermann  more 

than  doubtful,  on  the  ground  that  a  matter  Cp.  Charikles, 

of  merely  practical  value  was  never  reckoned 


as  wcu&ta  ;  but  it  is  hardly  likely  that  such  an 
essential  branch  of  knowledge  should  have 
been  wholly  passed  over.*  We  find  that  the 
knowledge  of  the  use  of  the  abacus  or  calcu-  Cp.  jebb's 

f      -         ,  ,  •     j    »i     i-r      t*T'  ^t.  Theophrastus, 

lating-board  was  common  in  daily  life.,  With  pp.  189,  217. 
regard  to  reading,  Becker  appears  to  think 
that  when  the  names  and  powers  of  the 
letters  had  been  mastered,  the  pupils  next 
began  to  read  by  the  syllabic  method  ;f  but 


*  Mathematics  certainly  were  not  wholly  neglected,  as  we 
may  see  from  the  beginning  of  the  Erastae  (the  genuineness 
of  which  Mr.  Grote  satisfactorily  defends,  i.  452),  where,  in 
the  house  of  Dionysius  the  schoolmaster,  two  youths  are 
represented  as  debating  some  geometrical  problem.  Plato 
gives  us  aa  idea  of  how  he  would  have  it  taught  in  the  well- 
known  passage  of  the  Meno  (84  D,  85  B) ;  and  the  impor- 
tance which  he  attached  to  the  study  comes  out  in  many  of 
his  works  (cp.  esp.  Rep.  vii.  522  E,  525  D,  528  B,  Legg.  v. 
747  B.  He  uses  mathematical  examples  inter  alias  locos  in 
Euthyph.  12  D,  Theaet.  147  D).  But  how  far  the  study  of 
mathematics  was  pursued  at  schools,  and  how  far  it  was  left 
to  later  life,  we  have  no  means  of  determining. 

f  If  I  understand  aright  Becker's  "  Syllabirmethode," 
as  opposed  to  the  "reine  Buchstabirmethode,"  he  denotes 
by  the  former  the  admirable  method  of  learning  to  read 


72  EDUCA  TION  AT  A  THENS. 

the  passage  quoted  by  him  from  Dionysius 

of   Halicarnassus    hardly    bears    out    the 

Cp.  Ussing,     interpretation  which  he  puts  upon  it  ;  and 

op.  cit.  p.  107, 

note.  it    is    expressly    contradicted    by  another 

Athen.  x.  79,  passage    quoted    from    Athenaeus,    which 
p.  453* 

tells  us  how  there  was  a  kind  of  metrical 


chant  used  in  schools,  running  ftrjra  a\<f>a  y?a, 

f&yra  &  fit,  f}fjra  rj  fa,  ftrjra  twra  fit,  ftrjra  ov  flo, 
PTJTO.  a»  /&*>•  /cat  iraXiv  cv  avriarrpoifHp  Tov  /icAov?  KOI 
rov  pcTpov,  ydfJifJLa  dA<£a,  ya/x/xa  c?  K.r.X.  Kal  CTTI  ra>v 
AOITTWV  crvXXaySwv  CROWDS  CKaoruiv.*  Writing  was 

taught  by  copies,  the  masters  drawing 
lines  on  which  the  pupil  was  to  write  the 
letters  set  before  him,  as  Plato  tells  us 

(Protag.  326  D)  ot  ypa/m/iariOTat  TOW  /uufnxo  oWot? 
ctv  TO>V  TratSojv  vxroypa^aKrcs  ypa/x/xas  T 


(recently  brought  into  more  general  notice  by  Messrs. 
Meiklejohn  and  Sonnenschein),  in  which  the  pupil  is  not 
taught  the  names  of  the  letters  at  first,  but  simply  their 
powers,  so  that  he  is  able  to  combine  them  into  syllables  at 
once,  without  the  confusion  of  ideas  that  often  arises  from 
the  common  system.  But  this  is  one  of  the  somewhat 
numerous  passages  in  which  the  English  abridgement 
of  "Charicles"  purchases  brevity  at  the  cost  of  the  sacri- 
fice of  the  most  important  phrases  and  clauses  of  the 
original. 

*  In  Dionys.  Halic.  (de  admir.  vi  die.  in  Demos  th.  c.  52) 
we  have  the  following  account  of  the  various  stages  in 
learning  to  read  :  "  Fust,  we  learn  the  names  of  the  letters 
{oToi\iia  rijQ  0wvvc)  that  is  the  ypa/ff*ara,  then  their  several 
forms  and  values  (rvirovc  icai  Swaptlf),  then  syllables  and 


STUDY  OF  THE  POETS.  73 


TO  ypa/i/iarctov  StSoacrt  ical  dvayjca^owt  - 
Kara   r^v  v^iyyiyo'tv   rtav    ypa/i/xaiv  :     here     ypap.fj.al 

must  mean  the  lines  drawn  for  the  guidance 
of  the  pupil,  and  not,  as  some  would  under- 
stand it,  letters  which  the  pupil  was  to 
trace  over ;  though  the  latter  practice  was  Cp.  Sauppe 

adloc. 

also  adopted,  as  we  see  from  a  passage  in 
Quintilian  (I.  i.  2 7, Halm):  "  Cum  vero  iam 
ductus  sequi  coeperit  (puer),  non  inutile  erit 
literas  tabellae  qiiam  optime  insculpi,  ut 
per  illos  velut  sulcos  ducatur  stilus"  (cp. 
also  v.  14,  31).  But  in  the  judgment  of  Plato 
(Laws,  vii.  8io)too  much  attention  ought 
not  to  be  given  to  handwriting :  if  boys 
cannot  readily  acquire  quickness  and  beauty 
of  writing  in  the  time  allowed  to  their 
studies,  they  must  be  content  to  let  it 
alone. 

As  soon   as  the    needful    rudiments  of  study  of  the 
reading  and    writing  were   mastered,  the 

their  modifications  (rd  irtpl  ravra  iraOrj),  and  finally  nouns 
and  verbs  and  connecting  particles,  and  the  changes  which 
they  undergo  (ovo^ara  xai  prjpara  Kai  0w$e<rpov£  jcae  rd 
avfjLfttfiijK&ra  rot/roic,  ffvirroXdc,  «*rd(r«f,  <Wrijrac,  flapv- 
rifrac,  irr«rt<rft£,  dpiOfiovc,  lycXt'ffftc,  rd  aXXa  7rapair\f)ffia 
rovroiq).  Then  we  begin  to  read  and  to  write,  at  first 
syllable  by  syllable,  very  slowly,  and  then  more  rapidly,  as 
we  acquire  some  familiarity." 


74          EDUCA TION  AT  A THENS. 

teachers  commenced  the  more  important 
part  of  literary  education.  "  Placing  the 

Protag.  325  E.  pupils,"  as  Plato  says,  "  on  the  benches, 
they  make  them  read  and  learn  by  heart  the 
poems  of  good  poets,  in  which  are  many 
moral  lessons,  many  tales  and  eulogies 
and  lays  of  the  brave  men  of  old,  that 
the  boys  may  imitate  them  with  emula- 
tion, and  strive  to  become  such  them- 
selves." It  appears  that  in  very  early 
times  there  were  selections  from  the  works 
of  Homer,  Hesiod,  Theognis,  Phokylides, 
and  many  of  the  lyric  poets,  expressly 
intended  for  use  in  schools.  Some,  like 

Schomann  Gr.  Nikeratos     in     Xenophon's     Symposium, 

Alt.  i.  519. 

From  Ar.  Av.  went  so  far  as  to  learn  by  heart  the 
that JEsopCar whole  of  the  Iliad  and  the  Odyssey;  and 
he  boasts  that  he  could  still  repeat  them 
?/!C  fr°m  memory.  At  first,  we  may  believe 
that  these  Poems  were  simply  explained 
to  the  boys,  the  meaning  of  words  and 
phrases  discussed,  and  obscure  allusions 
interpreted.*  But  before  long  ypa.pp.ara' 

*  We  have  an  example  of  the  kind  of  catechising  that 
was  practised  in  the  fragments  of  the  AatraXtTc  of  Aristo- 
phanes, quoted  by  Galen  in  the  preface  to  the  Lexicon 
Hippocraticum ;  e.g.— - 


MUSIC.  75 

was  supplemented  by  the  other  great  sec-  Music. 
tion  of  /Kovcruo?;  and  the  boys  were  taught 
to  chant  the  poems  they  had  learnt  to  a 
suitable  accompaniment  on  the  lyre.    Ac- 
cording to  Plato  Ki0ap«rt$  was  not  to  com-  Laws,  vii.  p. 

8lOA. 

mence  till  the  boys  were  thirteen  years 
of  age,  when  they  had  already  spent 
three  years  on  the  study  of  letters;  but 
we  have  no  means,  I  believe,  of  deter- 
mining whether  in  laying  down  this  regu- 
lation for  his  ideal  State,  he  was  following 
or  correcting  the  practice  common  at 
Athens.  It  is  evident,  of  course,  that  a 
certain  time  would  have  to  be  spent  in 
acquiring  a  command  over  the  instrument  * 

trpdc  ravra  ob  Xlgov  *O/<i?p€tovc  yXwrraf  ,  ri  caXowrt  «d/ou/i/3a. 

and  again  — 

6  /ill/  ov  v  croc;,  ipOQ  &  ovrof  a£cX0o£  0pa<raruj  rl 


Cp.  Aristophanis  Fragmenta,  ed.  Dindorf.  (1869)  p*  182. 
The  AairaXuc  would  have  probably  furnished  us  with  many 
more  hints  on  Athenian  education,  had  it  been  preserved  to 
us  ;  for  the  subject  appears  to  have  been  furnished  by  two 
brothers,  one  addicted  to  the  old-fashioned  methods  of 
learning,  another  to  new-fangled  ways,  regarded  of  course 
with  no  little  disfavour  by  Aristophanes. 

*  Hermann   notices  that  the  \vpa  is  more  frequently  Charikles,  ii. 
mentioned   by  the  earlier  writers  (with  the  exception  of  38. 
Homer,  where  the  word  does  not  occur)  than  the  tciOapa  ; 
but  the  latter  was  a  much  lighter  instrument  (Diet.  Ant.  s.v. 
Lyra),  and  was  therefore  probably  used  in  schools.    The  use 
of  the  flute,  so  common  in  Boeotia,  was  at  one  time  prac- 


76          EDUCATION  AT  ATHENS. 

before  it  could  be  employed  to  accompany 

the  voice  in  recitations  or  chantings.    We 

influence  of    have  already  noticed  (p.  35)  the  importance 

music^ 

attached  to  the  study  of  music.    Plutarch 

Vol.  i.  pp.      in    his    treatise    on    the    subject   is    only 

132—3 

(Goodwin),     expressing  the  common  Greek  sentiment 

when  he  writes:  "Whoever  he  be  that 
shall  give  his  mind  to  the  study  of 
music  in  his  youth,  if  he  meet  with  a 
musical  education  proper  for  the  forming 
and  regulating  his  inclinations,  he  will  be 
sure  to  applaud  and  embrace  that  which 
is  noble  and  generous,  and  to  rebuke  and 
blame  the  contrary,  as  well  in  other  things 
as  in  what  belongs  to  music.  And  by 
that  means  he  will  become  clear  from  all 
reproachful  actions,  for  now  having  reaped 
the  noblest  fruit  of  music,  he  may  be  of 
great  use,  not  only  to  himself,  but  to  the 
commonwealth;  while  music  teaches  him 
to  abstain  from  everything  that  is  indecent, 
both  in  word  and  deed,  and  to  observe 


tised  at  Athens,  but  it  was  afterwards  discouraged,  partly 
because  its  music  was  supposed  to  be  too  passionate  and 
orgiastic  in  its  character,  and  partly  because  it  could  not  be 
accompanied  by  the  voice  of  the  performer.  Cp.  Arist.  PoK 
v.  (viii.)  6,  6,  and  Cic.  pro  Mur.  13,  29. 


INFLUENCE  OF  MUSIC.  77 

decorum,  temperance,  and  regularity " 
(§41).  And  again  yet  more  emphatically, 
(§  31) :  "The  right  moulding  or  ruin  of  in- 
genuous manners  and  civil  conduct  lies 
in  a  well-grounded  musical  education." 
Plato  constantly  expresses  similar  opinions, 
as,  for  instance,  in  the  Timaeus  (p.  47  D), 
where  he  says  that  "  harmony  is  not  re- 
garded by  him  who  intelligently  uses  the 
Muses  as  given  by  them  with  a  view  to 
irrational  pleasure,  but  with  a  view  to 
the  inharmonical  course  of  the  soul  and 
as  an  ally  for  the  purpose  of  reducing 
this  into  harmony  and  agreement  with 
itself;  and  rhythm  was  given  by  them 
for  the  same  purpose,  on  account  of  the 
irregular  and  graceless  ways  which  pre- 
vail among  mankind  generally,  and  to 
help  us  against  them."  And  again  in 
the  Protagoras  (p.  326  B.) :  "They  make 
rhythm  and  harmony  familiar  to  the  souls 
of  boys,  that  they  may  grow  more  gentle, 
and  graceful,  and  harmonious,  and  so  be  Cp.  too  Rep. 

f  .         ,  iii.  401 ;  Laws, 

of  service  both  in  words  and  deeds ;   for  vii.  812 ;  and 
the  whole  life  of  man  stands  in  need  of  (vhf.)"  5,° " 
grace    and    harmony."      Hence    we    find  I5~25* 


7  8  EDUCA TION  AT  A THENS. 

that  the  greatest  care  was  taken  to  adapt 
the  tunes  to  the  poems  to  which  they 
were  to  be  sung,  and  to  provide  that  both 
the  one  and  the  other  should  be  pure, 
noble,  and  elevating.  It  is  quite  as  mut  n 
on  ethical  as  on  aesthetic  grounds  that 
Aristophanes  attacks  so  fiercely  the  cor- 
rupters  of  the  music  of  his  own  day. 
Philoxenus,  Kinesias,  and  Phrynis  all 
come  in  for  his  censures,  as  contributing, 
by  their  effeminate  and  enervating  music, 
Cp»  Nub.  971.  to  the  degeneracy  of  the  Athenian  youth. 
And  in  the  controversy  between  Aeschylus 
and  Euripides  in  the  Ranae,  as  to  their 
respective  merits,  hardly  less  importance 
is  attached  to  the  formal  (i.e.  the  rhyth- 
mical and  musical)  side  of  their  works 
than  to  the  material  or  moral  and  re- 
Plato,  Hi.  336.  ligious  side.  Mr.  Grote  has  pointed  out 
how  even  a  practical  politician  like  Poly- 
bius  considers  a  training  in  music  indis- 
pensable for  the  softening  of  violent  and 

Polyb.  iv.  pp.  sanguinary  tempers.    The  Athenian  critics 

20. 21,  of  the   f         -          "  .  r      ,     .  t 

rude  Area-      found    the  mam  object    of   their    attacks 
Kynaetha.      *n  the  later  developements  of  the  Dithy- 
ramb,  which   had    always    been    allowed 


HIGHER  EDUCATION.  79 

great  laxity  of  construction,  but  which, 
towards  the  close  of  the  fifth  century 
before  Christ,  in  the  hands  of  Melanip* 
pides,  Philoxenus,  Kinesias,  Phrynis,  Timo- 
theus,  and  Polyeidus  went  through  a 
gradual  process  of  degradation*  The  prin- 
cipal ground  of  censure  with  the  philoso- 
phers and  moralists  was  that  which  Plato 
(Gorg.  501  D)  expressly  adduces  in  the 
case  of  Kinesias,  that  the  musicians  had 
come  to  attach  no  importance  to  making 
their  hearers  better,  and  only  sought  to 
please  the  greater  number.  Hence,  as  we 
shall  shortly  see,  Plato  and  Aristotle,  in 
their  ideal  schemes  of  national  education, 
insist  repeatedly  on  the  necessity  of  a 
rigid  official  control  of  the  music  taught 
to  the  young,  that  it  may  not  fail  to 
secure  the  elevating  results  which  it  is 
capable  of  producing.* 

*  The  moral  part  of  the  education  given  in  an  Athenian 
school,  so  far  as  it  concerned  propriety  of  behaviour  rather 
than  justness  of  views,  or  temperance  and  courage  of  spirit, 
was  summed  up  under  the  name  tvicoepia.  To  this  Plato  in 
the  Protagoras  attaches  much  importance,  and  even  says 
(speaking  under  the  person  of  Protagoras),  tlq  £t£a<r«aXc*>y 
ir«/47ro»>r«c  [ol  irarlpe?]  woXi/jSXXov  ivriXXovrai  iirifitXtladai 
tvKoafjiiag  rwv  iraitiuv  >}  ypa/jftdrwv  re  icat  KtQapiffiwg  (p. 
325  D).  A  graphic  sketch  of  the  points  which  were  con- 


8o          EDUCA TION  AT  A THJENS. 

In  the  earlier  days  of  the  Athenian 
State,  the  education  of  a  boy  was  con- 
sidered complete  when  he  had  acquired 


sidered  essential  to  tvKovpia  is  given  in  the  locus  classicus 
on  Athenian  education  in  Aristoph.  Nub.  961-983.  From 
this  it  appears  that  a  modest  silence,  a  reserved  behaviour  in 
the  streets,  a  decent  position  in  sitting,  and  an  absence  of 
greediness  at  meals,  were  regarded  as  distinguishing  features 
of  a  well-trained  boy. 

It  is  probable  that  both  branches  of  /lovffun?,  letters  and 
music,  were  often  taught  by  the  same  master  (Cp.  Ar.  Eq. 
1 8 1,  with  Kock's  note) ;  but  for  gymnastics,  as  we  see  from 
the  passage  in  the  Clouds,  boys  went  to  a  different  master, 
the  Traiflorpi/fyc-  Cramer  (Geschichte  der  Erziehung,  i.  287) 
regards  this  profession  as  one  peculiar  to  Athens ;  but  he 
assigns  no  authority,  nor  is  such  a  limitation  probable  from 
the  nature  of  the  case.  As  compared  with  Sparta,  where 
the  physical  training  of  the  youth  of  the  nation  was  con- 
ducted wholly  by  State  officials,  it  is  certain  that  private 
teachers  of  gymnastics  were  far  more  numerous  at  Athens  ; 
but  all  our  evidence  goes  to  show  that  they  were  common  in 
every  town  of  Greece.  Whether  there  was  any  difference 
between  the  iraitioTpiprjc  and  the  yvfiva<rrrt^  is  not  clear : 
from  the  words  of  Aristotle  (irapaSortov  rove  irditiaQ  yvp- 
teal  7rat^orpi/3iicr;  *  rovrwv  yap  17  piv  irotav  nva 
£iv  TOV  trw/taro?  rj  dl  ra  tpya — Pol.  v.  [viii.J  3,  2) 
it  seems  that  the  one  was  especially  concerned  with  the 
general  health  and  vigour  of  his  pupils,  the  other  with  their 
skill  and  agility  in  the  performance  of  gymnastic  feats.  But 
the  terms  are  often  interchanged.  Still  after  the  very  careful 
discussion  by  Becker  and  Hermann  (Charikles,  ii.  185-194) 
it  seems  probable  that  the  gymnasium  was  especially  devoted 
to  the  amusement  of  men,  the  palaestra  to  the  training  of 
boys.  [Mr.  Jebb,  in  his  charming  edition  of  Theophrastus 
(p.  237),  makes  the  distinction  to  consist  rather  in  the  fact 
that  the  palaestra  was  strictly  only  a  school  for  boxing  and 
wrestling,  while  the  gymnasium  properly  meant  a  place  of 
more  general  resort  and  more  various  resources,  including 


THE  SOPHISTS.  81 

the  elements  of  gymnastics  and  of  music.* 
Naturally,  the  process  of  training  was 
continued  longer  in  some  cases  than  in 
others.  In  a  passage  already  quoted  Plato 
tells  us,  what  we  might  have  argued 
from  analogy,  that  the  sons  of  wealthier 
citizens  remained  at  school  longer  than 
those  of  the  poorer  ones;  and  probably 
some  of  them  continued  their  studies 
until  the  time  for  their  solemn  admission 
into  the  ranks  of  the  ire^iTroAoi,  when  they 
were  enrolled,  each  in  his  own  deme, 
presented  with  a  shield  and  spear  in  the 
theatre  before  the  assembled  people,  and 


grounds  for  running  and  archery,  javelin-ranges,  baths,  &c.] 
It  would  lead  us  too  far  from  the  present  subject  to  enter 
upon  a  consideration  of  the  particular  exercises  practised  in 
the  palaestra.  There  is  a  very  graphic  description  of  these 
in  the  Anacharsis  of  Lucian ;  and  the  whole  question  is 
exhaustively  discussed  by  Hermann,  Privatalt.  pp.  296-304. 
And  it  is  happily  needless  to  dwell  upon  the  serious  moral 
evils  that  attended  upon  them  so  often — 

Non  ragionam  di  lor,  ma  guarda  e  passa. 
«  Aristotle  tells  us  (Pol.  v.  (viii.)  2)  that  to  the  three  main 
branches  of  education,  letters,  gymnastics,  and  music,  some 
added  a  fourth — drawing.  According  to  PHn.  H.N.  xxxv. 
17,  this  was  owing  to  the  influence  of  Pamphilus  of  Sicyon 
(Flor.  B.C.  390-350)  :  Pamphili  auctoritate  effectum  est 
Sicyone  primum,  deinde  in  tota  Graecia  ut  pueri  ingenui 
omnes  artem  graphicen  hoc  est  picturam  in  buxo  docerentur. 
recipereturque  ars  ea  in  primum  gradum  artium  liberalium. 


8 i          EDUCA TION  AT  A THENS. 
Cp.  Scho-       required  to  take  an  oath  of  obedience  to 

mann.Alterth. 

i.  372,  where   the  laws  and  devotion  to  the  State.     Per- 
th e  words  of    , 
the  oath  are    haps  the  more  elaborate  training  in  the 

use  of  arms,  in  the  art  of  war,  and  in 
the  elements  of  drawing,  which  we  find 
mentioned  by  Plato  and  Aristotle,  was 
The  Sophists,  already  known.  But  it  is  with  the 
appearance  of  the  Sophists  that  we  have 
the  first  intimations  of  anything  like  a 
regular  system  of  higher  education.  This 
is  not  the  place  for  any  attempt  at  a  full 
discussion  of  the  character  and  work  of  that 
remarkable  class  of  men.  Since  the  appear- 
ance of  Mr.  Grote's  justly  famous  chapter 
on  the  subject,  the  question  has  been  so 
thoroughly  discussed,  from  every  point  of 
view,  by  Mr.  Cope,  Mr.  Lewes,  Dr.  Scho- 
mann,  Dr.  Zeller,  Sir  A.  Grant,  Professor 
Campbell,  Professor  Jowett,  and  Mr.  Henry 
Sidgwick,  that  nothing  less  than  an  essay 
devoted  to  the  purpose  would  be  sufficient 
to  state  and  examine  the  various  argu- 
ments that  have  been  adduced.  I  must 
be  content  here  to  express  my  full  con- 
journal  of  currence  in  the  words  of  Mr.  Sidgwick, 
vol. Sv.°pf  288.  that  Grote's  account  "has  the  merit  of  a 


THE  SOPHISTS.  83 

historical  discovery  of  the  highest  order," 
and  that  "the  main  substance  of  his  con- 
clusions is  as  clear  and  certain  as  anything 

of  the  kind  can  possibly  be."    The  general  Their  cha- 
racter and 
purport  of  his  views  I  take  to  be  some-  influence. 

what  as  follows :  that  towards  the  middle 
of  the  fifth  century  before  Christ,  various 
teachers  appeared  in  different  parts  *of 
Greece,  most  of  whom  were,  at  some  time 
of  their  life,  attracted  to  Athens  as  the 
centre  of  the  highest  Hellenic  life;  that 
they  judged  the  traditional  system  of 
education  to  be  imperfect  in  many  ways, 
and  capable  of  being  supplemented  by  in- 
struction of  considerable  value  for  practical 
life;  that  this  instruction  they  professed 
themselves  able  to  give,  and  willing  to 
give  for  money;  that  in  doing  so  some 
of  their  number  took  up  with  superficial 
and  dangerous  views  of  truth  which  drew 
upon  them  the  unsparing  hostility  of  men 
like  Sokrates  and  Plato,  while  the  way  in 
which  they  ran  counter  to  popular  pre- 
judices, and  above  all  the  fact  that  they 
received  pay  for  their  teaching,  exposed 
them  to  the  ill-will  of  the  uneducated  ;  but 


84          EDUCA TION  AT  A THENS. 

that  it  is  equally  erroneous  to  regard  them 
as  a  sect  with  any  common  agreement  as 
to  doctrines,  and  as  consciously  and  with- 
out exception  teaching  immorality.  It  can- 
not be  denied,  I  think,  that  their  method 
of  investigation  was  as  a  rule  deficient 
in  depth  and  thoroughness;  that  it  was 
often  dangerous ;  that  it  contributed  some- 
thing to  the  decay  of  morality  at  Athens, 
and  would  have  contributed  more  if  it  had 
not  been  for  the  resolute  opposition  of  the 
Socratic  schools ;  and  that  Plato  was  fully 
justified  in  much,  if  not  all,  his  polemics 
against  their  prevailing  tendencies.  Nor, 
on  the  other  hand,  can  we  doubt  their 
Their  in-  services  to  the  developement  of  the  higher 
education  of  the  time.  It  would  not  have 
been  a  little  if  the  bold  speculations  of 
some  of  their  number  on  ethics  and  politics 
had  done  nothing  more  than  call  up  the 
more  thorough  and  far-reaching  discus- 
sions of  Plato  and  Aristotle.  There  is  a 
very  real  sense  in  which  men  like  Pro- 
tagoras, Prodikus,  and  even  Gorgias  and 
Hippias,  are  to  be  called  the  fathers  of 
moral  philosophy  rather  than  Sokrates. 


THE  SOPHISTS.  85 

It  was  not  he  who  called  down  philosophy 
from  the  heights  to  dwell  among  men; 
but  finding  her  already  directed  by  the 
Sophists  to  the  business  of  the  agora 
and  the  home,  he  guided  her  by  his 
shrewd  common-sense  and  unfailing  de- 
votion to  righteousness  to  the  method 
whereby  she  might  deal  with  it  aright 
The  step  from  the  era  of  "  unconscious  Cp.  Stirling. 

Notes  to 

morality  "  (Stttlichkeit,  as  the  Germans  call  Schwegier, 
it)  to  that  of  philosophical  morality  (Mo- P'  * 
ralitat\  when  moral  precepts  rest  no 
longer  upon  tradition,  but  upon  "  a  system  Grote's  Plato, 
of  reasoned  truth,"  must,  of  necessity,  be 
accompanied  by  much  shaking  of  accepted 
beliefs,  by  much  scepticism,  unreasonable 
as  well  as  reasonable;  but  for  all  that 
the  step  is  imperatively  needful  for  the 
progress  of  the  race.  Traditional  morality 
is  secure  only  so  long  as  it  is  unimpugned ; 
at  the  first  assault  with  the  weapons  of 
reason,  it  must  furnish  itself  with  arms 
of  the  same  temper  and  forging,  if  it  is 
to  hold  its  own.  It  is  probable,  nay 
almost  certain,  that  Plato  exaggerates 
the  shameless  audacity  of  men  like  Thra- 


86  EDUCA TION  AT  A THENS. 

symachus  and  Polus;  yet  it  cannot  be 
doubted  that  the  Gorgias  and  the  Re- 
public, and  we  may  even  add  the  Nico- 
machean  Ethics  and  the  Politics,  are  the 
immediate  outcome  of  the  speculations 
The.  study  of  first  set  on  foot  by  the  Sophists.  But 
their  contributions  to  the  advance  of  know- 
ledge were  not  wholly  indirect.  The  im- 
portance which  was  commonly  assigned 
to  dialectic  and  rhetoric  naturally  led  to 
a  closer  study  of  the  nature  of  words  and 
sentences;  and  hence  we  find  the  begin- 
nings of  the  science  of  grammar  attributed 
to  some  of  the  leading  Sophists.  Prota- 
goras was  the  first  to  discuss  the  gender 
of  substantives,  the  tenses  (pipy  XP^WV)  and 
the  modality  of  propositions,*  and  gene- 
rally the  correctness  of  diction  (6>0o«r€ta — 
Plat.  Phaedr.  267  c).  Prodikus — as  we 
learn  from  Plato's  delicious  parodies — 


*  Cp.  Zeller,  Philosophic  der  Griechen,  i.  787  :  "  Prota- 
goras und  Prodikus — die  ersten  Begriinder  einer  wissen- 
schaftlichen  Sprachforschung  bei  den  Griechen  gewerden 
sind."  It  is  commonly  said  that  he  discussed  the  moods,  and 
Zeller  (u.s.  note  5)  defends  this  view ;  but  Spengel  (Svyaywyi} 
rfixvwv,  p.  44)  and  Benfey — Geschichte  der  Sprachwissen- 
schaft  (p.  in)— have,  I  think,  clearly  disproved  it. 


THE  SOPHISTS.  87 

taught  the  distinctions  between  synony- 
mous terms,  not  without  a  certain  over-re- 
finement and  conscious  affectation.  Hippias 
laid  down  rules  for  correctness  in  language 
generally,  but  especially  with  reference  to 
rhythm,  and  to  the  powers  of  the  several 


letters   (ypa/^arwv  8wa/A«$).      And    there   Was  Cp.  Benfey, 

Geschichle, 

hardly  one  of  the  more  prominent  Sophists  p.  112 
who  did  not  leave  behind  him  a  treatise  on 
rhetoric  (r^x^n)-  The  fragments  of  these 
have  been  collected  in  an  early  work  of 
Leonard  Spengel's,  2wayo>y^  rexy&v.  So 
deeply  did  the  new  studies  strike  root 
into  the  higher  Athenian  education,  that 
Antisthenes,  who  was  at  once  a  pupil  of 
Sokrates  and  of  Gorgias,  says  d^x*?  iraiScv'o-cws 
fj  TWV  ovoftarcov  CTTICTKC^IS;*  and  the  earnestness 
with  which  the  Platonic  Sokrates  re- 
peatedly utters  his  warnings  against  the 


*  At  the  same  time  we  have  abundant  proof  of  the 
general  ignorance  of  grammar  in  the  fact  that  Plato  again 
and  again  introduces  its  elementary  conceptions  as  novelties 
to  his  hearers.  Cp.  Phileb.  18  B  ;  Cratyl.  424  C  ;  Theaet. 
303  B  ;  and  see  especially  the  curious  difficulty  with  which 
the  very  intelligent  Theaetetus  follows  the  grammatical  illus- 
trations of  the  Elean  in  Sophistes,  pp.  261-262.  Cp.  Witt- 
mann,  Erziehung  und  Unterricht  bei  Platon.  p.  22,  and 
Grote's  Plato,  ii.  434. 


88  EDUCATION  AT  ATHENS. 

danger  of  deriving  a  knowledge  of  things 
solely  from  their  names,  is  a  sufficient 
proof  of  the  great  influence  of  the  So- 
phistic methods.  If  further  evidence  were 
wanted,  it  would  be  supplied  by  the  jests 
of  Aristophanes  (Nub.  662,  599)  and  by 
the  fact  that  the  comic  poet  Kallias  wrote 
a  Tpapparucrj  TpaywSux  on  purpose  to  turn 
them  into  ridicule.*  Of  the  interest  which 
the  presence  of  one  of  the  famous 
Sophists  caused  at  Athens  we  have  a 
well-known  and  extremely  graphic  de- 
scription at  the  beginning  of  Plato's  Pro- 
Tke  higher  tagoras.  It  is  plain  that  as  early  as  the 

learning. 

time  of  the  Peloponnesian  war  a  new 
element  had  been  introduced  into  Athenian 
education,  which  for  nearly  a  thousand 

*  Cramer,  on  the  other  hand  (Geschichte  der  Erziehung, 
ii.  p.  212),  considers  that  the  object  of  Kallias  was  rather  to 
encourage  the  introduction  of  the  new  Ionian  alphabet,  which, 
in  403,  was  officially  substituted  for  the  old  Cadmean  alphabet 
of  sixteen  letters  ;  and  that  he  endeavoured  to  give  to  gram* 
matical  rules  a  certain  attractiveness  by  throwing  them  into 
the  form  of  verse.  I  have  not  had  an  opportunity  of  con- 
sulting Welcker's  paper  "Das  ABC-buch  des  Kallias  in 
Form  einer  Tragodie,"  in  the  Rhein.  Museum,  I.  i.  137,  &c, 
But  Kallias  is  certainly  best  known  as  a  comic  poet.  Dr. 
Schmitz,  however  (in  Diet.  Biog.  I.  v.),  considers  it  doubtful 
whether  the  comic  poet  is  to  be  identified  with  the  writer  of 


THE  SOPHISTS.  89 

years  was  never  to  be  wanting  to  it.  Not 
recognised  by  the  Government — at  least 
till  a  later  date — and  owing  their  attrac- 
tion solely  to  their  reputation  for  su- 
perior learning  or  ability,  the  long  series 
of  Sophists,  rhetoricians,  and  philoso- 
phers continued  to  give  that  instruction 
in  the  higher  learning  which,  found  no- 
where else  in  equal  fulness,  was  destined 
to  keep  alive,  far  into  the  Christian  cen- 
turies, the  fame  of  Athens  as  the  univer- 
sity of  the  civilised  world.  The  general 
nature,  tendency,  and  results  of  their  teach- 
ing would  furnish  a  theme  of  the  highest 
interest.  For,  indeed,  it  would  be  little" 
less  than  the  history  of  the  completest 
culture  given  to  the  human  intellect  during 
a  period  of  surpassing  importance.  It 
would  comprise  all  the  most  hopeful, 
sober,  resolute,  and  finally  despairing  at- 
tempts of  human  philosophy  to  solve  for 
itself  the  mysteries  of  life  and  death,  of 
man  and  of  the  world  around  him,  before 
the  "dayspring  from  on  high"  visited  us, 
and  the  "Sun  of  Righteousness"  arose 
with  healing  in  His  wings  on  a  weary, 


90  EDUCA TION  AT  A THENS. 

sin-sick  earth.  But  the  theme  would  lead 
us  far  away  from  our  present  subject, 
and,  indeed,  it  would  need  no  little  cour- 
age to  attempt  it.  We  must  simply  take 
notice  of  the  fact  that  above  and  beyond 
the  training  of  the  palaestra  and  the 
school,  there  was  an  education  open  to 
every  free-born  Athenian  youth,  which, 
for  the  untrammelled  play  which  it  gave 
to  the  highest  powers  of  reason  and 
fancy  on  the  most  important  themes,  for 
the  keen  rivalry  of  opposing  schools,  for 
the  acuteness,  and  in  many  cases  the 
moral  earnestness,  of  the  teachers,  for 
the  free  intercourse  which  it  promoted 
among  students  from  every  part  of  the 
Hellenic  world,  has  been  rarely  if  ever 
equalled.  The  early  training  of  the  Athe- 
nian boys  in  grammar  and  music  (as  the 
words  were  at  that  time  understood), 
developed  a  refinement  of  taste  which 
became  instinctive;  the  close  and  con- 
stant study  of  the  poets  of  their  country 
filled  their  minds  with  noble  thoughts  and 
beautiful  fancies;  and  the  assiduous  prac- 
tice of  gymnastics  shaped  and  moulded 


THE  CIVIC  LIFE.  91 

frames  of  manly  grace  and  vigour.  But 
that  which  made  the  Athenian  intellect 
what  it  was,  which  lent  it  its  unrivalled 
suppleness,  and  created  its  unfailing  ver- 
satility, was  not  so  much  the  formal 
training  of  boyhood,  as  the  daily  inter- 
course of  the  youthful  citizen  with  acute 
and  disciplined  philosophers. 
Again,  we  should  fail  to  take  account  of  influence  of 

the  national 

a  most  important  element  in  Athenian  edu-  life. 
cation  if  we  passed  over  wholly  in  silence 
the  results  upon  the  younger  men  of 
the  richness  of  the  common  national  life. 
When  critics  like  Johnson  sneered  at  the 
Athenians  as  ignorant  barbarians,  he  was 
not  answered  by  enumerating  the  schools 
that  abounded  in  Athens,  and  culling 
from  ancient  writers  references  to  the  ex- 
tent and  completeness  of  the  training  in 
grammar  and  rhetoric.  But  he  was  re- 
minded that  "  to  be  a  citizen  was  to  be  a 
legislator — a  soldier — a  judge, — one  upon 
whose  voice  might  depend  the  fate  of  the 
wealthiest  tributary  state,  of  the  most 
important  public  man."*  An  Athenian's 
*  Cp.  Macaulay's  "  Essay  on  the  Athenian  Orators,"  and 


92  EDUCATION  AT  ATHENS. 

books  were  few,  but  those  which  he  had 
were  the  writings  of  the  poets  whom  the 
consentient  voices  of  all  later  civilisation 
have  pronounced  to  be  unrivalled  models. 
And  they  were  known  with  a  thoroughness 
which  outweighed  a  thousandfold  in  its 
value  for  mental  discipline  the  hasty 
skimming  of  innumerable  newspapers  and 
pamphlets.  But  above  all  things  the 
Athenian  of  the  age  of  Perikles  was 
living  in  an  atmosphere  of  unequalled 
genius  and  culture.  He  took  his  way 
past  the  temples  where  the  friezes  of 
Phidias  seemed  to  breathe  and  struggle, 
under  the  shadow  of  the  colonnades 
reared  by  the  craft  of  Iktinus  or  Kal- 
likrates  and  glowing  with  the  hues  of 
Polygnotus,  to  the  agora  where,  like  his 
Aryan  forefathers  by  the  shores  of  the 
Caspian,  or  his  Teutonic  cousins  in  the 
forests  of  Germany,  he  was  to  take  his 
part  as  a  free  man  in  fixing  the  fortunes 
of  his  country.  There  he  would  listen, 

Curtius  Hist.  ii.  415  :  "A  constitution  founded  in  a  spirit  of 
sublime  wisdom,  and  having  in  view  the  participation  of  the 
whole  civic  community  in  public  life,  necessarily  and  of  itself 
became,  in  the  fullest  sense  of  the  word,  a  public  discipline." 


THE  CIVIC  LIFE.  93 

with  the  eagerness  of  one  who  knew  that 
all  he  held  most  dear  was  trembling  in 
the  balance,  to  the  pregnant  eloquence 
of  Perikles.  Or,  in  later  times,  he  would 
measure  the  sober  prudence  of  Nikias 
against  the  boisterous  turbulence  of  Kleon, 
or  the  daring  brilliance  of  Alkibiades. 
Then,  as  the  Great  Dionysia  came  round 
once  more  with  the  spring-time,  and  the  sea 
was  open  again  for  traffic,  and  from  every 
quarter  of  Hellas  the  strangers  flocked  for 

pleasure   or  business,  he  would  take  his  Cp.  Becker's 

Charikles, 

place  betimes  in  the  theatre  of  Dionysms,  i.  scene  x. 
and  gaze  from  sunrise  to  sunset  on  the 
successive  tragedies  in  which  Sophokles, 
and  Euripides,  and  Ion  of  Chios,  were 
contending  for  the  prize  of  poetry.  Or, 
at  the  lesser  festivals,  he  would  listen  to 
the  wonderful  comedies  of  Eupolis,  Aris- 
tophanes, or  the  old  Kratinus,  with  their 
rollicking  fun  and  snatches  of  sweetest 
melody,  their  savage  attacks  on  personal 
enemies  and  merry  jeers  at  well-known 
cowards  or  wantons,  and,  underlying  all, 
their  weighty  allusions  and  earnest  poli- 
tical purpose.  As  he  passed  through  the 


94  ED UCA TION  AT  A  THENS. 

market-place,  or  looked  in  at  one  of  the 
wrestling  schools,  he  may  have  chanced  to 
come  upon  a  group  of  men  in  eager  conver- 
sation, or  hanging  with  breathless  interest 
on  the  words  of  one  of  their  number ;  and 
he  may  have  found  himself  listening  to  an 
harangue  of  Gorgias,  or  to  a  fragment  of 
the  unsparing  dialectic  of  Sokrates.  What 
could  books  do  more  for  a  man  who  was 
receiving  an  education  such  as  this?  "It 
was  what  the  student  gazed  on,  what  he 
heard,  what  he  caught  by  the  magic  of 
sympathy,  not  what  he  read,  which  was 
J.  H.  New-  the  education  furnished  by  Athens,"  Not 

toricai  by  her  discipline,  like  Sparta  and  Rome, 

Sketches,  -  ....  -  f  , 

p.  40.  but  by  the  unfailing  charm  of  her  gracious 

influence,  did  Athens  train  her  children. 
The  writer  whose  words  have  just  been 
quoted,  has  summarized,  with  all  his  wonted 
perfection  of  diction,  the  famous  passage 
in  the  funeral  speech  of  Perikles,  and  his 
language  may  fitly  express  the  better  side 
of  that  ideal  of  life  to  which  Athenian 
Character  of  education  was  directed:  "While  in  pri- 
vate and  personal  matters,  each  Athenian 
was  suffered  to  please  himself,  without 


A  THENIAN  CHARA  CTER.  95 


any  tyrannous  public  opinion  to  make 
him  feel  uncomfortable,  the  same  freedom 
of  will  did  but  unite  the  people,  one  and 
all,  in  concerns  of  national  interest,  be- 
cause obedience  to  the  magistrates  and 
the  laws  was  with  them  a  sort  of  passion, 
to  shrink  from  dishonour  an  instinct, 
and  to  repress  injustice  an  indulgence. 
They  could  be  splendid  in  their  feasts 
and  festivals  without  extravagance,  be- 
cause the  crowds  whom  they  attracted 
from  abroad  repaid  them  for  the  outlay; 
and  such  large  hospitality  did  but  cherish 
in  them  a  frank,  unsuspicious  and  coura- 
geous spirit,  which  better  protected  them 
than  a  pij^  of  state  secrets  and  exclusive 
laws.  Ntfr  did  this  joyous  mode  of  life 
relax  them  as  it  might  relax  a  less  noble 
race ;  for  they  were  warlike  without  effort 
and  expert  without  training,  and  rich  in 
resource  by  the  gift  of  nature,  and  after 
their  fill  of  pleasure  they  were  only  more 
gallant  in  the  field,  and  more  patient 
and  enduring  on  the  march.  They  cul- 
tivated the  fine  arts  with  too  much  taste 
to  be  expensive,  and  they  studied  the 


96  EDUCA TION  AT  A THENS. 

sciences  with  too  much  point  to  be  effemi- 
nate: debate  did  not  blunt  their  energy, 
nor  foresight  of  danger  chill  their  daring : 
but  as  their  tragic  poet  expresses  it,  'the 
loves  were  the  attendants  upon  wisdom, 
and  had  a  share  in  the  acts  of  every 
Newman,  virtue.' "  It  is  needless  to  say  that  there 

Historical         .  ,  .  ,  «  . 

Sketches,  pp.  is  another  side  to  the  picture.    A  purely 
laissez-faire    policy    in    education    is    not 
likely  to  be  wholly  successful,  even  under 
the    most    favouring    circumstances;    and 
there  are  darker  shades  to  be  added  to 
the  painting,  before  we  can  accept  it  as 
influence  and  a  just  delineation.    The  attraction  of  in- 
wmpared.       fluence  tells,   as   nothing    else  will,  with 
those    who    are    nobly-minded;    and    the 
unfettered    "Lern-    und   Lehr-Freiheit," 
which  has  long  been  the  boast  of  Ger- 
many, and    to    which    our    own    English 
universities  are  happily  making  some  ap- 
proaches, is  capable  of  producing  results 
more  valuable  than  any  which  discipline 
can  attain  to.    But  for  the  mass  of  men 
something  more  is  needed  than  the  simple 
charms  of  knowledge  and  virtue  to  con- 
strain them  to  the  steady  and  strenuous 


DECLINE  OF  A  THENS.  97 

pursuit  which  is  needful  to  achieve  success. 
We  may  well  believe  that,  as  Spartan 
apologists  were  compelled  to  admit,  a 
good  Athenian  was  a  better  man  than 
the  best  of  Spartans.  And  yet  we  may 
see  that  many  a  young  Athenian  citizen 
would  have  been  far  better  for  something 
of  the  stern  control  which  marked  the 
discipline  of  Lacedaemon.  The  evils  that 
arose  as  freedom  degenerated  into  license 
were  felt  all  the  more  deeply  in  a  city 
where  the  only  guard  of  the  laws  was 
the  tone  of  public  opinion.  All  that  a 
genuine  lover  of  the  free  Attic  life,  like 
Curtius,  can  venture  to  say  is  that  "the 
old  Attic  culture  which  had  proved  v  its 
worth  during  the  troubles  of  the  Persian 
wars,  the  ancient  morality  and  piety,  had 
retained  their  dominion  as  late  as  the  days 
of  Pericles,  even  without  the  binding  force 
of  laws  such  as  held  sway  at  Sparta/'* 
In  the  time  of  Plato  and  Aristotle  the 
danger  of  the  Athenian  tendency  to  indivi- 

*  The  repeated  attacks  of  Aristophanes  on  the  corruption 
of  the  youth  of  his  own  time  are  of  course  exaggerations ; 
but  they  cannot  have  been  without  a  very  considerable  basis 
of  reality. 

H 


98  EDUCA TION  AT  A THENS. 

dual  freedom  of  thought  and  action,  had 
clearly  presented  itself  to  the  view  of  every 
thinker:  and  hence  we  shall  find  them 
tending  rather  towards  the  institutions  of 
The  stoics  her  rival.  We  may  see  perhaps  in  the 
"s  fore-  educational  systems  of  Athens  and  Sparta 

f  <         <  •  r         <t 

respectively  some  foreshadowing  of  the 
two  great  schools  of  philosophy  that  were 
afterwards  to  divide  between  them  so  large 
a  portion  of  the  Hellenic  and  Roman  world. 
Athens  appears  to  have  learnt  beforehand 
the  philosophy  of  Epicurus — the  identity 
of  goodness  with  beauty  and  joy — and 
the  strength  and  the  weakness  of  Epicu- 
reanism were  hers.  We  find  on  the  one 
hand  the  winning  grace  of  life,  the  genial 
ease,  the  kindly  brightness  whicjh  lend  so 
much  attraction  to  the  figures  of  Epicurus 
himself  and  the  best  of  his  followers — 
we  need  refer  only  to  Vergil  and  Horace ; 
but  on  the  other  hand  we  have  a  license 
that  readily  degenerates  into  licentious- 
ness, an  indulgence  of  the  purer  impulses 
of  the  heart  that  too  soon  passes  into  an 
indulgence  of  each  and  all.  The  identifi- 
cation of  virtue  with  happiness  leads  very 


DANGERS  OF  THE  SYSTEM        99 

quickly  to  the  identification  of  pleasure 
with  virtue;  the  love  of  the  Beautiful 
becomes  the  love  of  the  Sensual;  and 
the  pursuit  of  that  which  is  most  alluring 
lasts,  even  when  goodness  has  lost  her 
power  to  be  held  as  such*  Sparta,  on 
the  other  hand,  tended  towards  that  rigid 
suppression  of  natural  desires,  and  that 
absolute  submission  to  external  law,  which 
formed  the  strength  of  Stoicism,  just  as 
their  exaggeration  proved  in  the  long  run 
its  fatal  weakness.  There  were  many,  un- 
doubtedly, to  whom  the  rigid  discipline 
of  Sparta,  or  the  severe  ascetism  of  the 
Porch,  was  safer  than  a  freer  and  a  more 
genial  system;  but  as  on  the  one  hand 
the  virtue  that  was  the  product  of  Law 
fell  short  of  the  goodness  that  sprang 
from  a  love  of  the  ideal  Good,*  so,  on  the 
other,  the  attempt  to  impose  on  all  man- 
kind a  burden  greater  than  they  could 
bear  of  necessity  led  to  a  fierce  reaction, 
which  broke  the  bonds  of  every  law. 

*  It  is  needless  to  say  that  men  like  Epictetus  and  Marcus 
Aurelius  cannot  be  considered  as  Stoics  proper.  Though 
nominally  followers  of  Zeno  and  Cleanthes,  they  aie  really 
Eclectics  in  the  most  attractive  part  of  their  philosophy. 


ioo         EDUCATION  AT  ATHENS. 

The  evils  of  license  are  great,  but  it  may 
be  fairly  doubted  whether  they  are  not 
less  in  magnitude  and  permanence  than 
those  which  result  from  unnatural  and 
tyrannous  restrictions.  The  rule  of  Sparta 
was  shorter  and  far  more  brutal  than  that 
of  Athens ;  her  fall  was  greater,  her  ruin 
more  utter  and  irretrievable. 


CHAPTER  III. 

PLATO  ON  NATIONAL  EDUCATION. 

have  now  completed  our  survey 
of  the  popular  theories  of  educa- 
tion in  the  two   great    typical 
Greek  communities,  and  of  the 
manner  in  which  they  were  carried  into 
practice ;  it  remains  that  we  should  consi- 
der more  in  detail  the  views  of  the  leading 
Athenian    thinkers    of  the    century   with 
which  we  are  especially  dealing. 
Xenophon  need  not  long  delay  us.    It  is 

limited  view** 

true  that  his  Kyropaedia,  if  not  actually 
written,  as  some  authorities  inform  us,  in 
opposition  to  the  Republic  of  Plato,  has 
this  much  in  common  with  that  great  work, 
that  the  writer  endeavours  to  set  forth  (in 
this  case  under  the  transparent  disguise  of. 
a  historical  fiction)  his  views  on  the  ideal 
constitution  anc1  government  of  a  State. 


1 02  PL  A  TO  ON  EDUCA  TION. 

But  the  paternal  despotism  of  a  wise  and 
virtuous  prince,  and  not  the  rule  of  a 
highly  cultivated  body  of  philosophers,  was 
the  government  which  commended  itself  to 
the  judgment  of  the  gallant  but  somewhat 
narrow-minded  mercenary;  and  the  Per- 
sian laws,  which  he  regards  with  so  much 
approval,  aim  only  at  rearing  skilful,  brave, 
temperate,  and  above  all  obedient,  soldiers. 
Of  any  higher  education  than  that  which  is 
needful  for  the  production  of  useful  tools  in 
war,  there  is  hardly  a  trace  to  be  found. 
The  training  of  the  intellect  was  limited  to 
the  cultivation  of  a  certain  power  of  ex- 
plaining the  grounds  of  action  (Kyrop.  i. 
4,  3).  The  Persians  are  not  supposed  to 
know  their  letters,  to  hear  or  recite  any 
poetry,  or  even  to  learn  the  use  of  any 
ideen,  &c.,  ii.  musical  instrument.  And  Heeren  has 
shown  that  even  this  meagre  training  was 
intended  only  for  the  members  of  an  exclu- 
sive caste.  None  were  to  be  admitted  to  it 
but  those  who  were  placed  by  circum- 
stances beyond  the  necessity  of  working 
for  their  daily  bread.  It  is  needless  to 
point  out  the  want  of  analytical  and  specu- 


ARISTOTLE'S  METHOD.          103 

lative  power,  and  the  inferior  knowledge  of 
human  nature,  which  make  this  treatise 
hardly  deserving  of  mention  by  the  side  of 
the  master-works  of  the  Lyceum  and  the 
Academy, 

Plato   and  Aristotle  both    attached  the  importance  of 

education 

greatest  importance  to  education,  and  dwelt  with  Plato 

and  Aristotle. 

upon  it  at  considerable  length.  With  both, 
the  establishment  of  a  perfect  common- 
wealth was  regarded  as  the  ultimate  object 
of  all  the  speculations  of  philosophy ;  inas- 
much as  it  was  only  in  the  midst  of  the 
favourable  conditions  afforded  by  a  perfect 
State  that  the  complete  happiness  and 
virtue  of  the  individual  could  be  realised. 
But  the  first  requisite  for  the  perfection 
of  the  State  is  a  well-ordered  system  of 
education.  And  so  Aristotle,  after  dis-  Aristotle's 

method. 

cussing  in  the  Nicomachean  Ethics  the 
supreme  good  of  the  individual,  and  the 
laws  of  his  highest  excellence,  proceeds  in 
his  Politics  to  sketch  out  his  conception  of 
an  ideal  State.*  As  usual  with  him,  a  certain 
amount  of  attention  is  given  first  to  a  purely 

*  That  it  is  an  ideal  State  has  been  shown,   against 
objectors,  by  Zeller,  ii.  2,  570. 


104 


PL  A  TO  ON  EDUCA  TION. 


negative  criticism  of  previous  attempts  in 
the  same  direction;  but  he  proceeds  only 
a  very  little  way  in  the  constructive  portion 
of  his  work  before  he  takes  up  the  question 
of  education,  and  assigns  nearly  a  book 
and  a  half  to  its  consideration,  although  his 
treatment  of  the  subject  is  evidently  frag- 
mentary.* And  Plato's  matured  and  sys- 
tematic expression  of  his  views  on  education 
is  thrown  into  the  same  form  in  his  Republic 
We  Republic  and  Laws.  These  two  great  works  differ 

and  the  Laws.  .  t      .  ,  -    . 

so  considerably  in  style,  in  power,  and  in 
many  points  of  detail,  that  some  have  been 
tempted  to  deny  the  genuineness  of  the 
latter.  But  after  the  defence  of  the  Laws 
by  Stallbaum,  Grote,  and  Jowett,  and  the 
recantation  by  Zeller  of  his  former  ex- 
tremely able  attack,  we  may  fairly  consider 
all  doubts  removed.  The  important  dis- 
crepancies seem  to  be  fully  accounted  for 
by  the  different  conditions  under  which  the 
dialogues  were  written,  and  the  different 
objects  which  they  had  in  view.  In  the 

•  It  will  be  seen  that  I  follow  the  rearrangement  of  the 
books  of  the  Politics  adopted  by  St.  Hilaire  and  Congrevc. 
Cp.  Zeller,  ii.  2,  523. 


Cp.  his 
Platonische 
Studien, 
I  -131,  with 
l>is  Ges- 
chichte,  ii. 
i.  348,  615, 
641. 


REPUBLIC  AND  LA  WS.  105 

Republic,  undoubtedly  a  work  of  Plato's 
prime,  the  philosopher  endeavours,  with 
little  or  no  regard  to  the  possibilities  of 
actual  life,  to  draw  out  a  scheme  of  that 
polity,  which  should  be  ideally  favourable 
to  the  developement  of  virtue,  and  therefore 
of  happiness.  The  Laws  we  may  with 
equal  certainty  pronounce  to  be  the  product 
of  his  extreme  old  age.  He  no  longer 
aims  at  that  which  is  the  best  conceivable;* 
but  he  draws  out  a  system  of  legislation 
for  a  colony  which  he  supposes  it  is  intended 
to  found  in  a  certain  place  in  Crete.  There 
is  not  only  a  striking  failure  of  artistic 
power  in  the  later  treatise,  a  senile  garrulity 
and  discursiveness,  a  marked  deficiency  in 
the  infinite  grace,  humour,  and  dramatic 
skill  that  illuminate  his  earlier  writings, 
but  there  is  also  a  hard  and  bitter  tone, 
and  above  all  a  narrow  dogmatism  strangely 
unlike  his  former  joyous  confidence  in  the 
healthful  results  of  the  free  play  of  reason 
in  dialectics.  It  will,  therefore,  be  needful- 

*  Strictly  speaking,  even  the  Republic  does  not  give  what 
Plato  considered  absolutely  best ;  e.g.  communism  is  limited 
to  the  Guardians,  instead  of  being  extended  to  the  whole 
community.  Cp.  Grote's  Plato,  iii.  207  and  note. 


1 06  PL  A  TO  ON  EDUCA  TION. 

for  us  in  many  cases  to  distinguish  the 
theories  of  the  Laws  from  those  of  the 
Republic ;  and  not  to  speak  hastily  of  any 
views  as  held  by  Plato,  unless  at  the  same 
time  we  determine  to  what  portion  of  his 
life  and  to  what  stage  in  his  thought  we  are 
to  assign  them. 

The  Republic.  It  has  been  often  said  that  the  Republic 
is  essentially  a  treatise  on  education,  and 

Mr.  Maurice    the  statement  has  much  truth  in  it.     But 

characteristi- 
cally objects    it  needs  one  very  important  qualification. 

to  any  such 

limited  defini-  All  that  has  been  said  above  of  the  limited 

tion  of  it. 

Anc.  Phil.      sense  in  which  we  can  speak  of  a  national 

p.  163  (ed.  4).      ,  ,        .      /-.  .  .,, 

'  education  in  (ireece  is  true,  in  a  still  higher 
degree,  of  the  conception  of  it  held  by  Plato. 
Dividing  the  citizens  of  his  ideal  state  into 
Rulers,  or  Guardians,  Auxiliaries,  and 
Commons,  he  provides  a  very  careful  and 
thorough  education  for  the  first  class,  and 
a  rigorous  training,  up  to  a  certain  point, 
for  the  second,  but  the  third,  which  will 
naturally  be  by  far  the  largest,  he  leaves 
wholly  without  provision.  It  is  true  that 
Cp.  Grote's  he  does  not  exclude  them  from  membership 

Plato,  iii.  212. 

of  the   State,  as  Aristotle  does;    on  the 
contrary,  the   laborious  and    self-denying 


HIS.  VIEWS  OF  SPARTA .  1 07 

training  of  the  Guardians  is  mainly  intended 
to  secure  the  happiness  of  the  Commons, 
and  the  chief  enjoyment  which  the  former 
have  to  expect  is  the  consciousness  of  doing 
their  duty.  Still  the  education  sketched 
out  in  the  Republic  is  the  education  of  a 
small  class,  and  the  Demos  is  in  this 
respect  wholly  neglected.  It  is  one  of  the 
most  curious  points  about  the  Republic 
that  Plato  passes  over  almost  wholly  in 
silence  the  condition  of  what  after  all  he 
must  have  considered  would  have  formed 
the  great  majority  of  the  citizens. 

We  have  noticed  before  (p.  53)  the  great  The  extent  of 

his  admiration 

attraction  which  the   Spartan  institutions  for  Sparta. 
seem  to  have  had  for  Plato,     He  is  entirely  Cp.  jowett's 

„  Plato,  ii.  137. 

at  one  with  them  on  the  absolute  control 
which  the  State  is  to  exercise  over  the 
training  and  the  manner  of  life  of  every 
citizen.  And  yet,  as  Mr,  Grote  has  acutely 
noticed,  it  is  rather  the  Athenian  type  of 
character  which  he  aims  at  producing,  and 
the  common  Athenian  instruments  of  edu-  Cp.  Grote, 

_,  Plato,  iii. 

cation  which  he  approves.    The  excessive  175,  178. 
devotion  of  the   Spartans  to  gymnastics, 
and  their  neglect  of  music  in  its  wider 


i 08          PLA  TO  ON  EDUCA  TION. 

sense,  he  censures  as  likely  to  make  men 
good  warriors,  but  not  good  citizens.  A 
man  who  gives  himself  up  unduly  to 
gymnastics,  "ends  by  becoming  a  hater 
of  philosophy,  uncultivated,  never  using 
the  weapon  of  persuasion ;  he  is  like  a 
wild  beast,  all  violence  and  fierceness,  and 
knows  no  other  way  of  dealing;  and  he 
lives  in  all  ignorance  and  evil  conditions, 
Repub.  iii.  and  has  no  sense  of  propriety  or  grace." 
On  the  other  hand,  if  he  devotes  himself 
too  much  to  music,  he  is  apt  to  become 
"  melted  and  softened  beyond  what  is  good 
for  him ; "  "  the  passion  of  his  soul  is  melted 
out  of  him,  and  what  may  be  called  the 
nerves  of  his  soul  are  cut  away,  and  he 
becomes  but  a  feeble  warrior;"  he  may  even 
grow  irritable,  violent,  and  very  discon- 
tented. Therefore  it  is  necessary  that 
throughout  life  these  two  means  of  educa- 
tion should  be  kept  in  due  proportion  to 
each  other,  so  that  each  side  of  the  nature 
of  man  may  be  fitly  trained  and  developed. 
The  birth  and  With  Plato,  as  with  Lycurgus,  the  care 
'children.  of  the  children  of  the  State  begins  before 
their  birth.  Rigid  rules  are  laid  down  for 


REGULA  TION  OF  MARRIA  GE.      1 09 

the  regulation  of  marriage.  The  limits  of 
age  within  which  marriage  for  the  purpose 
of  procreation  is  allowed  are  strictly  fixed ; 
and  the  care  which  was  taken  at  Sparta 
that  the  most  suitable  partners  should  be 
brought  together  is  carried  to  an  extreme, 
which  has  always  been  regarded  as  one 
of  the  most  impracticable  and  repulsive 
features  of  the  Republic.  As  Mr.  Jowett 
justly  says :  "  Human  nature  is  reduced  as 
nearly  as  possible  to  the  level  of  the 
animals.  *  .  .  All  that  world  of  poetry  and 
fancy  which  the  passion  of  love  has  called 
forth  in  modern  literature  and  romance 
would  have  been  banished  by  Plato.  .  ,  . 
We  start  back  horrified  from  this  Platonic 
ideal,  in  the  belief,  first,  that  the  instincts 
of  human  nature  are  far  too  strong  to  be 
crushed  out  in  this  way ;  secondly,  that  if 
the  plan  could  be  carried  out,  we  should 
be  poorly  recompensed  by  improvements 
in  the  breed  for  the  loss  of  the  best  things 
in  life.  The  greatest  regard  for  the  least 
and  meanest  things  of  humanity — the  de- 
formed infant,  the  culprit,  the  insane,  the 
idiot — truly  seems  to  us  one  of  the  noblest 


no          PLATO  ON  EDUCATION. 
Plato,  ii,        results  of  Christianity."     And  yet  we  are 

J45-* 

bound  to  recognise  in  Plato's  conception 
of  a  State  regulation  of  marriage,  involving 
as  it  does  the  degrading  notion  of  a  general 
community  of  wives,  an  honest  and  earnest 
attempt  to  struggle  against  some  of  the 
greatest  and  most  widespread  hindrances 
to  the  establishment  of  national  well-being. 
It  cannot  be  denied  that  there  are  few 
sources  of  vice  and  crime  so  fatally  prolific 
as  the  manifold  evils  that  result  from  im- 
provident and  ill-adjusted  marriages.  What 
the  most  thoughtful  and  far-seeing  of  the 
modern  reformers  of  society  are  endeavour- 
ing to  secure  by  the  creation  of  habits  of 
self-control  aided  by  an  enlightened  public 
opinion,  Plato  attempted  to  grasp  at  once 
by  a  violent  subversion  of  the  foundations 
of  human  society  as  at  present  constituted. 
We,  who  are  learning  in  medicine  to  trust 
to  the  restorative  power  of  nature,  and  are 
taught  by  our  ablest  surgeons  to  give  up 
See  the  pub-  the  cautery  and  the  knife  for  the  healing 

lished  lectures 

of  Mr.  Hilton,  magic  ot  rest,  are  not  likely  to  sympathise 

Hospital        with  "  heroic  remedies,"     And  yet  we  may 

appreciate    the    magnitude    of    the    evils 


THE  TRAINING  OF  CHILDREN,    i  \  i 

against  which  Plato's  theories  were  directed, 
and  the  value  of  the  advantages  which 
would  be  among  the  results  of  their  re- 
alisation. 

We  must  not  fail  to  notice,  however,  that  Limits  to  the 
Plato   himself  was  fully  alive  to  the   im-  '  ^ 


portance  of  giving  some  freedom  to  the 
emotions  in  marriage.  For  while  he  assigns 
to  the  Rulers  the  absolute  determination 
of  the  unions  which  shall  be  permitted,  he 
recognises  it  as  one  of  their  most  difficult, 
and  at  the  same  time  important  duties,  so 
to  arrange  their  assignment  of  men  and 
women  to  each  other,  that  the  decision  may  Rep.  v.  40. 
appear  the  result  of  fortune,  not  of  policy. 

The   offspring  of  the   marriages   of  the  The  nurture 
Guardians   are  to  be  removed  from   their  -  c> 
mothers  as  soon  as  born,  that  no  special 
attachments  may  be  formed  towards  those 
who  are  all  brought  forth  for  the  State,  and 
the  property  of  the  State  in  common  ;  and 
the  children  of  inferior  parents,  or  those 
which  happen  to  be  deformed,  are  to  be 
made  away  with,*  that  the  breed  may  be 

*  *ara»cptJ7rrfii>  need    not    necessarily  bear  a  stronger 
meaning  than  that  which  Curtius  assigns  to  similar  expres- 


in  PLATO  ON  EDUCATION. 

maintained  in  vigour  and  purity.  Those 
approved  by  the  authorities  are  to  be 
transferred  to  State  nurseries,  and  given 
over  to  the  nurses  who  dwell  there ;  the 
mothers  are  to  be  allowed  to  come  and 
feed  them,  but  the  greatest  care  is  to  be 
taken  that  no  mother  recognises  her  own 
child.  In  the  Laws,  where  Plato  goes 
much  more  into  detail  than  he  does  in  the 
Republic,  we  find  abundant  precepts  given 
as  to  the  manner  in  which  the  nurses  are 
to  rear  the  children.  Just  as  the  Athenian 
bird-fanciers  were  accustomed  to  take  long 
walks  in  the  country,  with  their  cocks  and 
quails  tucked  under  their  arms,  for  the  sake 
of  health,  "that  is  to  say,  not  their  own 
health,  but  the  health  of  the  birds;"  so 
the  children  are  to  be  kept  constantly  in 
motion.  "They  should  live,  if  that  were 
possible,  as  if  they  were  always  rocking 
at  sea."  The  nurses  are  to  be  constantly 


sions  used  of  the  Spartan  custom  (cp.  p.  10).  In  Timaeus, 
p.  19  A,  where  there  is  an  evident  reference  to  this  passage, 
Plato  says,  "  You  remember  how  we  said  that  the  children 
of  the  good  parents  were  to  be  brought  up  (QpeTrriov),  and 
the  children  of  bad  parents  secretly  dispersed— «  fc  rrjv  u\\nv 
Cp.  Grote's  Plato,  iii.  205  (note). 


THE  TRAINING  OF  CHILDREN.    113 

carrying  them  about,  and  not  to  allow 
them,  to  walk  until  they  are  three  years 
old,  that  their  legs  may  not  be  distorted  Laws,  vii.  pp. 
from  the  too  early  use  of  them.  He  entirely 
disapproves  of  the  common  custom  of 
scaring  children  into  good  behavour  by 
fearful  stories,  and  insists  that  only  autho- 
rised tales  should  be  used  by  the  mothers 
and  nurses.  They  should  be  kept  as  free  Rep.  ii.  377 
as  possible  from  every  pain  and  fear,  but 
their  pleasures  should  also  be  limited,  in 
order  that  they  may  be  preserved  from 
undue  excitement  in  either  direction. 


-D. 
Amusements  they  will  be  able  to  provide  Their  amuse- 

for  themselves  abundantly,  as  they  get™ 
a  little  older ;  all  that  will  be  needful  is 
that  they  should  be  brought  together  at 
the  temples  of  the  various  villages,  in  the 
charge  of  the  nurses,  and  under  the  super- 
intendence of  one  of  the  twelve  women 
annually  appointed  for  that  purpose.  With  Their  educa- 
regard  to  the  education  which  is  to  be 
given  to  them,  when  they  are  of  the  proper 
age — an  age  which  Plato  considers  to  begin 
at  seven  years — he  expressly  says  that  it 
would  be  difficult  to  find  a  better  than  the 
I 


ii4          PLATO  ON  EDUCATION. 

Rep.  ii.  376.  old-fashioned  sort,  that  is,  gymnastics  for 
the  body  and  music  for  the  soul,  The  first 
three  years  are  to  be  given  up  mainly  to 
gymnastics  :  though  the  laudatory  manner 
in  which  he  refers  to  the  Egyptian  custom 
of  teaching  children  the  principles  of 
arithmetic  by  means  of  games  (Laws,  vii. 
819),  shows  us  that  he  would  not  have 
objected  to  some  intermixture  of  mental 
training  with  the  physical :  but  the  regular 
study  of  letters  was  not  to  begin  before  ten 
years  of  age,  and  only  three  years  were  to  be 
assigned  to  it ;  at  thirteen  years  a  boy  was 
to  take  in  hand  the  lyre,  and  at  this  he 
might  continue  for  another  three  years, 
"  neither  more  nor  less :  and  whether  his 
father  or  himself  liked  or  disliked  the  study, 
he  was  not  to  be  allowed  to  spend  more  or 
less  time  in  learning  music  than  the  law 

Strictness  oj  allowed"  (Laws,  vii.  810).  Throughout 
the  whole  of  his  period  of  pupilage  the 
strictest  supervision  and  discipline  were  to 
be  exercised.  "For  neither  sheep  nor 
any  other  animals  ought  to  live  without 
a  shepherd,  nor  ought  boys  to  live  without 
tutors  (TrcuSaywyot)  any  more  than  slaves 


STRICTNESS  OF  SUPERVISION.    115 

without  masters.    And  of  all  creatures  the 

boy  is  the  most  unmanageable.     For,  inas- 

much as  he  has  in  him  a  spring  of  reason 

not  yet  regulated,  he  is  the  most  insidious, 

sharp,  and  insubordinate  of  creatures.     So 

that  he  must  be  bound  with  many  bridles  : 

in  the  first  place,  when  he  gets  away  from 

mothers  and  nurses,  he  must  be  under  the 

control  of  tutors,  because  of  his  childishness 

and  foolishness  ;  and  then  again  as  being 

free-born,  he  must  be  kept  in   check  by 

those   who   have   anything  to  teach  him, 

and  by  his  studies  ;  but  as  being,  on  the 

other  hand,  in  the  position  of  a  slave,  any  cp.  s.  Paul, 

of  the  free-born  citizens  may  punish  him, 

ay,  and  his  tutor  and  teacher,  if  any 

» 

them  do    anything    wrong;    and  he  who  *n**6ei™v 

oitiev  oiafaptt 

comes  across  him  and  does  not  inflict  upon 


TCtVTWV  MV. 

him  the  punishment  which  he  deserves, 
shall  incur  the  greatest  disgrace  ;  and  that 
one  of  the  guardians  of  the  laws  who  has 
been  selected  to  govern  the  children,  must 
look  after  any  one  who  has  fallen  in  with 
the  cases  we  have  mentioned,  and  has 
failed  to  inflict  punishment,  or  has  in- 
flicted it  improperly:  and  we  must  have 


1 1 6  PL  A  TO  ON  EDUCA  TION. 

him  always  looking  out  sharply  and  with 
especial  care  to  the  training  of  the  children, 
directing  their  natures,  and  always  turning 
them  towards  the  good,  in  accordance  with 
the  laws."  (Laws,  vii.,  808-9). 
Detailed  re-  It  is  characteristic  of  the  dogmatic  and 

gulations  in 

the  Laws.  despotic  tone  which  marks  the  Laws 
throughout  that  very  little  freedom  of 
action  is  given  to  the  national  Minister 
bf  Education.  "As  far  as  possible  the 
law  ought  to  leave  nothing  to  him,  but 
to  explain  everything,  that  he  may  be  the 
interpreter  and  tutor  of  others."  Hence 
the  multiplicity  of  details  as  to  the  time 
to  be  spent  in  the  various  studies,  the 
rhythms  to  be  allowed  in  the  poems  learnt, 

Boys  and        and  the  dances  to  be  practised.     In  the 

girls  trained- 
alike.  Republic  Plato  insists  that  the  same  edu- 
cation should  be  given  to  boys  and  girls, 
that  both  alike  should  be  trained  to  be 
guardians  of  the  State,  and  that  both 
should  practise  the  exercises  of  the  pa- 
laestra. He  is  aware  of  the  ridicule  that 
such  a  proposal  will  bring  upon  him; 
but  inasmuch  as  nature  has  not  made  man 
and  woman  to  differ  in  kind  of  excellence 


BOFS  AND  GIRLS.  1 1 7 

but  only  in  degree,  he  will  be  no  partner 

to   any   arbitrary  distinctions.     It  is   idle  Cp.  Rep.  v. 

457. 
to   say  that  gymnastic  exercises  are  not 

becoming  to  women  :  they  are  needful  for 
the  object  he  has  in  view ;  the  object  is 
a  worthy  one,  and  the  best  of  all  maxims 
that  are  current  or  ever  will  be  is  that 
"that  which  is  useful  is  honourable,  and 
that  which  is  harmful  is  disgraceful."  But 
in  the  Laws  he  is  willing  to  make  some 
concession  to  what  he  still  regards  as 
the  unreasonable  prejudices  of  society, 
and  though  he  would  prefer  that  boys 
and  girls  should  be  trained  together  in 
precisely  the  same  exercises,  and  with  a 
view  to  the  same  functions  in  after  life, 
he  allows  them  to  be  educated  separately 
after  the  age  of  six  years,  boys  under 
the  care  of  men,  and  girls  under  that  of 
women.  But  he  protests  that  this  is  but 
a  second-best  kind  of  polity,  better  than 
the  Spartan  system,  and  very  much  better 
than  the  Athenian,  but  after  ail  providing  Laws,  vii. 
but  inadequately  for  the  well-being  and 
happiness  of  half  of  the  human  race.  In 
the  Laws  we  have,  as  we  have  noticed 


PL  A  TO  ON  EDUCA  TION. 


Gymnasia 
and  schools. 


Compulsory 
education. 


already,  many  more  deiails  as  to  the 
method  of  education  than  are  given  in 
the  Republic,  where  the  object  is  rather 
to  lay  down  the  leading  principles  which 
are  to  govern  it.  For  instance,  the  follow- 
ir ;£  passage  comes  from  the  former  work, 
and  has  nothing  corresponding  to  it  in 
the  latter:  "The  buildings  for  gymnasia 
and  schools  open  to  all  are  to  be  in  three 
places  in  the  midst  of  the  city;  and  out- 
side the  city  and  in  the  surrounding 
country  there  shall  be  schools  for  horse 
exercise,  and  open  spaces  also  in  three 
places,  arranged  with  a  view  to  archery 
&nd  the  throwing  of  missiles,  at  which 
young  men  may  learn  and  practise.  In 
these  several  schools  let  there  be  dwellings 
for  teachers,  who  shall  be  brought  from 
foreign  parts  by  pay,  and  let  them  teach 
the  frequenters  of  the  school  the  art  of 
war  and  the  art  of  music ;  and  they  shall 
come  not  only  if  their  parents  please, 
but  if  they  do  not  please;  and  if  their 
education  is  neglected,  there  shall  be  com- 
pulsory education  of  all  and  sundry,  as 
the  saying  is,  as  far  as  this  is  possible ; 


PRINCIPLES  OF  TRAINING.       1 1 9 

and  the  pupils  shall  be  regarded  as  be- 
longing to  the  State  rather  than  to  their 
parents."  (Laws,  vii.  804.) 

But  it  is  to  the  Republic  especially  that  Principle*  of 
we  have  to  look  for  the  principles  on  which  ea 
such  detailed  rules  are  ultimately  based, 
Plato's  theories  on  education  are  intimately 
connected  with  his  psychology  and  meta- 
physics. For  the  moral  training  of  the 
citizen  of  his  ideal  State — a  training  which 
is  not  limited  to  the  period  of  youth,  but 
extends  throughout  the  whole  of  life,  and 
which  is  distinctly  viewed  as  preparatory 
to  another  life  in  which  it  is  to  be  carried 
out  in  fuller  perfection — has  for  its  aim  See  Jowett's 

-  ..  ,  -  ,         -  Plato,  vol.  ii. 

the  proportionate  and  harmonious  develope-  p.  I52.* 
ment  of  the  various  elements  of  the  soul ; 
and  his  intellectual  training  is  intended 
to  fit  him  for  the  contemplation  of  the 
ideal  Good,  by  the  cultivation  of  the 
power  and  habit  of  abstraction*  The  soul,  Psychology  of 
according  to  Plato,  is  composed  of  three 
parts,  corresponding  generally  to  the 
senses,  the  heart,  and  the  intellect:  the 
first  and  lowest  is  the  concupiscent  prin- 
ciple, or  appetite  (TO  cViflupT-riKoV) ;  the  second 


1  20  PLA  TO  ON  EDUCA  TION. 

the  impulsive  principle  or  passion  (0v/xos  or 
;  the  third  and  highest  is  reason 


Rep.  iv.          (TO  AoyurrwcoV).     The  virtue   of   the  first   is 
436—441. 

temperance;     the    virtue    of   the    second, 

courage;  the  virtue  of  the  third  is  wisdom; 
while  the  supreme  and  crowning  virtue, 
in  which  the  others  find  their  synthesis  and 
harmony,  justice,  or  rather  perhaps  right- 
ness,  is  only  attained  to  when  "the  appetites 
whose  object  is  sensual  pleasure,  and  the 
Dr.  Thomp-  impulses  that  prompt  to  energetic  action," 

son,Phaedrus,  ,          ,  ,  ..     r  . 

Append,  i.  willingly  submit  to  the  control  of  a  wisely- 
ruling  reason.  The  aim  of  education,  then, 
must  be  to  produce  in  the  appetites  tem- 
perance, in  the  spirit  courage,  in  the  reason 
wisdom,  and  in  all  that  harmonious  co- 
operation which  alone  is  worthy  of  the 

Use  of  myths,  name  of  justice.  The  earliest  instrument 
employed  for  the  training  of  children  con- 

Rep.  ii.  377.  sists  of  myths  or  fictitious  stories.  Here 
Plato  accepts  the  common  practice  of  his 
time;  but  of  the  majority  of  the  fables 
used  he  strongly  disapproves.  For  some 
of  them,  he  says,  tend  to  corrupt  the 
mind,  by  placing  before  it  false  conceptions 
of  what  is  to  be  desired  and  what  is  to 


INFL  UENCE  OF  ART  AND  MUSIC.  1  2  1 

be  shunned;  while  others,  and  especially 
those  which  describe  the  terrors  of  Hades, 
fill  it  with  baseless  and  degrading  fears. 
The  narrative  form  of  composition  is 
especially  approved;  but  if  poets  adopt 
the  mimetic  or  dramatic  style,  they  are 
not  to  be  allowed  to  assume  the  characters 
of  vicious  or  foolish  men;  no  imitation 
can  be  suffered  but  that  of  the  reason- 

able and  virtiious  man.     In  the  same  way,  Rep.  iii. 

396-398. 
artists  must  not  venture  to  present  before  Plato's  dislike 

of  the  drama 

the  eyes  of  the  young  copies  of  any  ugly  comes  out 

*  again  in  the 

or   unbecoming    type;    their  object    must  .  Laws,  iv. 


be  to  discover  and  reproduce  the  idea 

the    beautiful  ;    so    that    children,    having 

before   them   constantly  various   forms   of 

beauty,  may  be  fitted  to  receive  and  appre- 

ciate the  influence  of  beautiful  discourse.  Rep.  Hi,  401. 

It   is  needless   to   repeat,   after  what  has 

been  said  above,  that  foremost  among  the 

creations  of  art  stood  music,  in  its  several 

branches   of  harmony,   rhythm,  and   lyric 

verse.     The  power  which  these  possess  to  Power  of 

attune  the  mind  unconsciously  to  the  love  m 

of  the  beautiful   is  dwelt  upon  at  length. 

The  reason   why  musical    training    is   so 


122  PL  A  TO  ON  EDUCA  TION. 

powerful  is  "  because  rhythm  and  harmony 
find  their  way  into  the  secret  places  of 
the  soul,  on  which  they  mightily  fasten, 
bearing  grace  in  their  movements,  and 
making  the  soul  graceful  of  him  who  is 
rightly  educated,  or  ungraceful  if  ill- 
educated;  and  also  because  he  who  has 
received  this  true  education  of  the  inner 
being  will  most  shrewdly  perceive  omis- 
sions or  faults  in  art  or  nature,  and  with 
a  true  taste,  while  he  praises  and  rejoices 
over,  and  receives  into  his  soul  the  good, 
and  becomes  noble  and  good,  he  will  justly 
blame  and  hate  the  bad,  now  in  the  days 
of  his  youth,  even  before  he  is  able 
to  know  the  reason  of  the  thing:  and 
when  reason  comes  he  will  recognise  and 
salute  her  as  a  friend  with  whom  his 
Rep.  iii.  education  has  made  him  long  familiar." 
Qowett).  This  love  for  the  beautiful,  engendered  by 
Platonic  Eros.  &  rightly-ordered  music,  leads  Plato  on  to 
the  general  question  of  the  nature  and 
results  of  that  passionate  and  ecstatic 
yearning  for  a  closer  union  with  the  beau- 
tiful, known  as  the  Platonic  Eros.  To 
this,  as  might  have  been  expected  from 


GYMNASTICS.  123 

the  writer  of  the  Phaedrus  and  the  Sym- 
posium, Plato  attaches  great  importance. 
But  just  as  we  have  seen  already  that 
there  is  no  reason  for  imputing  any  taint 
of  evil  to  the  intimacy  between  the  lover 
and  the  lover1  one  at  Sparta — whatever 
was  the  case  at  x^thens — so  Plato  is  care- 
ful to  preserve  his  conception  of  Eros  free 
from  sensuality  and  impurity.  Then  he  Rep.  m.  403 

TO 

passes  on  to  the  consideration  of  the 
gymnastics  to  be  practised.  These  are 
intended  only  in  a  subordinate  degree 
for  the  developement  of  the  bodily  powers 
(ill.  410  c);  just  as  the  main  object  of 
music  was  to  infuse  temperance,  so  gym- 
nastics is  especially  intended  to  stimulate 
the  spirited  (TO  fo/xoeiScs)  part  of  the  nature 
of  man,  and  thus  to  increase  his  courage. 
The  two  must  be  duly  tempered,  each 
with  the  other;  lest  on  the  one  hand  a 
boy  should  grow  hard  and  fierce,  or  on 
the  other  his  spirit  should  be  melted  and 
softened  beyond  what  is  good  for  him. 
But  Plato  does  not  think  it  needful  to 
give  prescriptions  in  detail  as  to  gym- 
nastics: "if  the  mind  be  properly  edu- 


124  PLATO  ON  EDUCATION. 

cated,  the  minuter  care  of  the  body  may 

be  committed  to  it ; "   for  "  the  good  soul 

improves    the    body,    and    not    the    good 

Rep.  Hi.         body  the   soul."     And  here  he  leaves  the 

403  D. 

subject  of  the  education  of  the  greater 
number  of  the  Guardians  (in  the  wider 
sense  in  which  he  employs  the  term), 
only  providing  that  at  certain  stages  in 
their  growth  there  shall  be  tests  imposed 
Tests  of  the  upon  them.  Tasks  are  to  be  set  before 

Guardians. 

them  such  that  there  is  a  danger  of  their 
forgetting  their  duty  or  being  deceived; 
toils  and  pains  and  conflicts  are  to  be 
prescribed  ;  and  finally,  they  must  be  tried 
Rep.  iii.  413.  by  the  witcheries  of  pleasure  "  more 
thoroughly  than  gold  is  tried  in  the  fire," 
in  order  to  discover  whether  they  are 
armed  against  all  enchantments,  and  of 
a  noble  bearing  always,  good  Guardians 
of  themselves  and  of  the  music  which 
they  have  learned,  and  whether  they  retain, 
under  all  circumstances,  a  rhythmical  and 
harmonious  nature,  such  as  will  be  most 
serviceable  to  the  man  himself  and  to 
the  State.  And  he  who  at  every  age, 
as  boy  and  youth  and  in  mature  life,  has 


HIGHER  EDUCATION.  125 

come  out  of  the  trial  victorious  and  pure, 
shall  be  appointed  a  Ruler  and  Guardian 
of  the  State.  Those  who  fail  are  to  be 
degraded  into  the  class  of  husbandmen 
and  artisans;  but,  on  the  other  hand, 
proved  and  tested  excellence  may  raise 
a  man  from  the  lower  rank  to  that  of 
Guardian  or  Auxiliary.  Mr.  Jowett  ad- 
mirably notices  this  "career  open  to 
talents  "  as  "  one  of  the  most  remarkable 
conceptions  of  the  Republic,  because  un- 
Greek  in  character  and  also  unlike  any- 
thing that  existed  at  all  in  that  age  of 
the  world/'  It  is  true  that  Plato  says  Plato,  ii.  38. 
nothing  of  the  means  by  which  the  lower 
class  are  to  attain  to  the  excellence  which 
is  so  carefully  cultivated  in  the  Guardians  : 
throughout  the  whole  of  the  dialogue 
they  fall  into  the  background :  but  at 
least  he  does  not  deliberately  doom  them 
to  entire  exclusion  from  the  higher  life  of 
the  nation. 

The  subject  of  the  higher  training  to  be  Higher  tram- 
afforded  to  the  select  Guardians  who  are  to 
become  the  Rulers  of  his  ideal  State  Plato 
recurs  to  in  the  sixth  and  seventh  books 


126          PL  A  TO  ON  EDUCA  TION. 

of  the  Republic.  But  this  does  not  appear 
to  fall  strictly  within  the  scope  of  the 
present  essay,  and  may  therefore  be  passed 
over  lightly.  The  main  object  which  he 
has  in  view  is  to  train  the  chosen  few,  by 
the  study  of  philosophy,  to  the  contempla- 
tion of  the  ideal  Good.  If  they  have  learnt 
to  know  what  this  is,  they  will  be  able  to 
recognise  it  under  all  the  various  forms  in 
which  it  may  present  itself,  and  so  they 

Rep.  vi.  505.  will  be  able  to  rule  aright.  "  The  power 
which  supplies  the  objects  of  real  know- 
ledge with  the  truth  that  is  in  them,  and 
which  gives  to  him  who  knows  them  the 
power  of  knowing  them,  we  must  consider 
to  be  the  essential  Form  and  Idea  of  Good, 
and  we  must  regard  this  as  the  origin  of 
science  and  of  truth,  so  far  as  the  latter 

Ib.  508  D.  comes  within  the  range  of  knowledge." 
The  highest  of  all  cognitions  of  the  Form 
of  Good  is  that  of  the  Dialectician,  who 
comprehends  directly  the  pure , essence  of 
Good  by  means  of  vovs  or  Intellect  (the 
"  Reason "  of  Kant  and  Coleridge) ;  an 
inferior  power  is  that  of  the  Geometer,  who 
knows  the  Good  only  through  particular 


HIGHER  EDUCA  TION.  127 

assumptions  by  means  of  the  Stavota  or  the  15.510-511 
Understanding.  The  ordinary  life  of  man 
is  illustrated  by  the  famous  simile  of  cap- 
tives chained  in  a  gloomy  cave,  with  their 
backs  turned  to  the  opening,  so  that  they 
can  see  nothing  by  the  light  of  the  sun, 
but  only  the  shadows  of  things  cast  by  a 
subterranean  fire.  The  purpose  of  educa- 
tion is  to  turn  men  round  from  their 
cramped  and  confusing  position,  to  enable 
them  to  see  the  glimpses  of  light  which 
come  from  the  world  of  brightness  and 
realities,  to  induce  them  to  struggle  up 
into  the  light,  and  to  learn  to  look  upon 
things  as  they  really  are,  and  then  to 
descend  again  into  the  cave,  that  they  may 
benefit  those  who  are  still  imprisoned,  by 
their  fuller  and  clearer  knowledge.  What  Rep.  vii, 
are  the  studies  then  which  are  needful  for 

education  p     (ri  av  ovv  efy  /*a%/,a  \Jrv^  O\KOV  curb 


TOV  yiyvo/Aepov  ITTL  TO  ov  ;)  Music  and  gymnastics  Subsidiary 

studies. 

are  but  preparatory  studies,  both  concerned 
with  the  changeable  and  perishing;  the 
useful  arts  are  simply  degrading  to  the 
reason.  But  arithmetic,  if  taught,  not  as 
it  is  too  often  with  a  view  to  practical 


128  PLATO  ON  EDUCATION. 

utility,    but    as    a    means    of   stimulating 

thought,  and  as  Leading  us  to  distrust  the 

impressions   of  the  senses,  will  be  found 

Rep.  vii.        of  value.      "The  philosopher  must  study 

525  B. 

it,  because  he  is  bound  to  rise  above  the 
changing  and  cling  to  the  real,  on  pain 
of  never  becoming  a  skilful  reasoner."  The 
second  study  is  to  be  geometry,  pursued 
in  the  same  manner  and  for  a  like  purpose. 
Geometry  of  three  dimensions,  Plato  held, 
was  in  his  time  studied  absurdly ;  but  if 
properly  taught  and  honoured,  it  would 
suitably  take  the  next  place.  Treatises 
on  the  subject  he  regards,  most  justly  from 
his  own  point  of  view,  as  of  little  value 
Cp,  Grote's  compared  with  the  intellectual  discipline 

Plato,  i.  228 

and  467.  furnished  by  a  competent  teacher.  Astro- 
nomy takes  the  fourth  place;  but  this  is 
to  be  studied,  not  by  the  empiric  method 
of  observation,  but  as  a  branch  of  solid 
geometry,  treating*  of  bodies  in  motion.* 
When  the  philosopher  has  added  to  these 

*  Mr.  Jowett  notices  (Plato,  ii.  85)  that  this  view,  which 
at  first  sight  seems  so  strange,  is  really  supported  by  the  fact 
that  the  greater  part  of  astronomy  at  the  present  day  consists 
of  abstract  dynamics,  and  that  the  most  brilliant  discoveries 
have  been  made  by  its  means. 


DUTIES  OF  CIVIC  LIFE.  129 

the  theoretical  study  of  acoustics  and  har- 
monics, he  will  have  been  trained  to  see 
the  common  method  and  principle  which 
pervades  them  all ;  and  so  he  will  be  pre- 
pared to  enter  on  the  crowning  task  of  his 
life-long  work,  the  pursuit  of  dialectics.  It  Dialectics. 
is  this  which  gives  his  intellect  power  to 
grasp  the  pure  and  absolute  Idea  of  Good, 
to  rise  out  of  the  darkness  of  the  cave,  and 
to  gaze. upon  the  eternal  realities  in  the 
"  white-dry"  light  of  truth.  The  special 
time  allotted  to  the  commencement  of 
these  higher  studies  is  the  period  between 
thirty  and  thirty-five  years  of  age ;  they  RCp.  vu.  539. 
should  not  begin  them  before  this  time ; 
for  boys,  when  first  introduced  to  dialectics, 
are  like  puppies,  who  delight  in  pulling  and 
tearing  to  pieces  with  their  newly-grown 
teeth  all  that  comes  in  their  way,  merely 
for  amusement's  sake.  At  thirty-five  they  Practical 

duties. 

are  to  be  constrained  to  return  to  the  cave, 
as  it  were,  and  to  take  upon  them  the 
duties  of  practical  life,  subjected  all  the 
time  to  the  supervision  and  the  continual 
testing  of  their  seniors,  to  see  if  they  will 
remain  steadfast  in  spite  of  every  seduction. 
K 


1 30          PL  A  TO  ON  EDUCA  TION. 

It  is  only  when  they  are  fifty  years  of  age, 
that  those  who  have  passed  safely  through 
every  temptation  are  to  be  allowed  to 
resume  their  philosophical  pursuits,  and 
"to  lift  up  the  eye  of  the  soul  and  fix  it 
upon  that  which  gives  light  to  all  things/' 
Yet  each,  when  his  turn  comes,  "is  to 
devote  himself  to  the  hard  duties  of  public 
life,  and  to  hold  office  for  his  country's 
sake,  not  as  a  desirable,  but  as  an  un- 
avoidable occupation;  and  thus  having 
trained  up  a  constant  supply  of  others  like 
themselves  to  fill  up  their  place  as  Guardians 
of  the  State,  they  will  depart  and  take  up 

Rep.  vii.  540.  their  abode  in  the  islands  of  the  blessed." 
The  whole  of  the  system  of  training  pre~ 
scribed  for  the  Guardians  is,  in  accordance 
with  Plato's  fundamental  position  on  this 

Cp.  Rep.  iv.  point,  to  be  common  to  men  and  women. 
In  no  respect  is  any  difference  to  be  re- 
cognised between  them,  except  such  as 
inevitably  result  from  their  natural  dis- 
tinctions.* 

*  The  earnestness  with  which  Plato  aims  at  raising  the 
education  of  women  from  the  absolute  neglect  which  it 
suffered  at  Athens,  is  selected  both  by  Jowett  and  by  Zeller 
(Philosophic,  II.  I,  570)  as  among  his  gteatest  excellences. 


ALTERED  VIEWS.  _    131 

The  same  opinion  is  maintained  in  the  Laws,  vii. 

804-806. 
Laws  explicitly.     But  in  other  points  we  Altered  -views 

r  .of  the  Laws. 

find  his  views  largely  modified.  There  is 
no  distinct  class  of  Guardians  ;  their  place 
is  filled  by  a  Nocturnal  Council,*  consisting 
of  the  ten  oldest  "guardians  of  the  laws" 
and  those  of  the  citizens  who  had  obtained 
prizes  for  virtue,  together  with  those  who 
had  visited  foreign  countries  (a  privilege 
rarely  conceded),  and  an  equal  number 
of  "  co-optative  "  juniors.  This  council  is 
asserted  to  require  a  special  training,  but 
none  such  is  provided  for  it :  the  attempt 
which  has  been  made  in  the  Epinomis 
(probably  by  Philippus  of  Opus  :  cp.  Diog. 
Laert.  iii.  37)  to  supply  the  deficiency  is 
certainly  not  genuine.f  But  the  most 
important  point  of  all,  is  that  magistrates 
are  to  be  elected  by  the  votes  of  all  the 
citizens  capable  of  military  service,  the  Laws,  vi.  755. 

*  It  is  not  easy  to  see  from  the  text  of  Plato  (Laws,  xii. 
961  A)  how  Mr.  Jowett  arrives  at  the  number  of  twenty -six 
for  this  council. 

t  Mr.  Grote,  I  believe,  stands  alone  among  modern 
scholars  in  his  attempt  to  defend  it ;  but  his  interpretation 
of  the  words  of  Diogenes  is  to  me  quite  untenable.  Mr. 
Jowett  has  no  doubt  upon  the  subject.  Plato,  iv.  485  and 
172*.  Cp.  Zeller,  ii.  I.  321. 


1 3  2          PL  A  TO  ON  EDUCA  TION. 

council  by  universal  suffrage  tempered  by 
a  division  into  classes  analogous  to  that 
prescribed  by  the  Servian  constitution  at 
Rome,  and  even  the  Minister  of  Education, 
the  most  important  functionary  in  the  State, 
in  Plato's  view,  by  the  votes  of  the 
guardians  of  the  law,  who  are  themselves 
chosen  by  the  people.  The  absolute 
ignoring  of  the  Demus,  which  is  so  con- 
spicuous in  the  Republic,  is  absent  from 
the  Laws,  and  the  education  ordained  is 
Education  in  common  to  all  the  citizens.  The  lead- 

the  Laws. 

ing  features    of    this   have    been    already 
pointed  out  (pp.  116-119).*    We  have  every- 

*  The  most  important  difference  between  the  teaching  of 
the  Republic  and  that  of  the  Laws  as  to  the  higher  education 
lies  in  the  fact  that  in  the  Laws  there  is  no  mention  of  the 
doctrine  of  Ideas :  "  the  will  of  God,  the  standard  of  the 
legislator,  and  the  dignity  of  the  soul  as  compared  with  the 
body  have  taken  their  place  in  the  mind  of  Plato."  On  the 
other  hand,  even  more  importance  is  attached  to  the  study 
of  Numbers ;  and  this  not  from  the  practical  utility  of  a 
knowledge  of  arithmetic ;  this  would  be  by  far  the  most 
foolish  of  all  arguments  (Laws,  vii.  818) ;  but  because  they 
appertain  essentially  to  the  divine  nature  and  to  the  consti- 
tution of  the  universe.  As  Zeller  justly  says :  "  In  this  work 
also  Plato  could  not  be  content  with  the  common  training  in 
music  and  gymnastics  ;  but  the  higher  training  in  dialectics 
he  deliberately  sets  aside ;  it  only  remains  for  him  therefore 
to  complete  his  system  with  what  ought  to  have  been  only  a 
preliminary  stage  to  philosophy,  a  link  between  mere  con- 
ception and  philosophic  thought,  that  is,  the  mathematic 


DEFECTS  OF  THE  LA  WS.          133 

where  the  most  rigid  censorship,  the 
most  precise  prescription  of  duties,  and, 
worse  than  all  in  the  view  of  modern 
thinkers,  an  elaborate  system  of  perpetual 
espionage.  All  the  regulations  are  directed 
to  the  maintenance  of  the  institutions  of 
the  legislator.  Plato's  noble  confidence  in 
the  power  of  reason  to  guide  to  the  truth  (as 
expressed  in  passages  like  Phaedo,  89-91)  Cp.  Grote, 
is  exchanged  for  a  timid  dread  of  entrust-  154-1*57! 
ing  a  weapon  so  dangerous  to  unskilful 
hands.  Originality  is  in  every  way  dis- 
couraged, and  the  willingness  to  "  follow 
the  argument,  whithersoever  it  might  lead," 
is  sacrificed  to  an  oppressive  orthodoxy. 
The  ideal  of  Plato  would  have  been  realised 
in  the  boast  of  M.  Duruy,  as  he  drew  his 
watch  from  his  pocket :  "  At  this  moment 


sciences,  and  to  seek  in  them  that  complement  of  the  ordi- 
nary morality  and  popular  religion,  which  the  original 
Platonic  State  had  secured  by  philosophy  "  (Die  Philosophic 
der  Griechen,  ii.  I,  621).  For  the  moral  side  of  education 
much  recourse  is  had  to  two  forces  that  are  but  sparingly 
introduced  in  the  Republic — the  religious  feeling,  and  the 
power  of  public  opinion.  It  is  to  the  latter  that  Plato  looks 
to  suppress  all  irregular  and  harmful  sexual  relations,  just  as 
it  has  already  extinguished  incest.  The  former  permeates 
the  whole  work,  and  the  entire  system  of  the  State  is  based 
upon  religion.  Cp.  Zeller,  ii.  I,  620. 


i34          PLATO  ON  EDUCATION. 

in  every  school  of  France  the  boys  are 
learning  such-and-such  a  page  of  such-and- 
such  a  text-book."  He  seems  to  have 
forgotten  what  he  once  knew — that  the 
wise  man  is  sure  to  be  in  opposition  to  the 
rest  of  mankind ;  for  some  degree  of  eccen- 
tricity generally  accompanies  originality; 
as  Democritus  said,  "the  philosopher,  if 
we  could  see  him,  would  appear  to  be  a 
strange  being."  In  the  Magnesian  State 
all  the  citizens  are  to  be  reduced  to  rule 
and  measure ;  there  would  have  been  none 
of  those  great  men  "  whose  acquaintance  is 
beyond  all  price;"  and  Plato  would  have 
found  that  in  the  worst-governed  Hellenic 
State  there  was  more  of  a  carricre  ouverte 
for  extraordinary  genius  and  virtue  than 
in  his  own.  The  first  principle  of  Plato's 
Laws,  borrowed  apparently  from  the  Spar- 
tan military  system,  "  that  no  one  is  to  be 
jowett,  Plato,  without  a  commander,"  is  literally  that  of 

iv.  165*. 

the  J  esuit  order. 


CHAPTER  IV. 

ARISTOTLE  ON  EDUCATION. 

IHE    theories    of   Aristotle    upon  piaceofedu- 

,  .  cation  in 

education  bear  in  many  r 
spects  a  striking  resemblance 
to  those  of  Plato.  He  is  wholly 
at  one  with  his  master  in  regarding  a  well- 
ordered  education  as  the  necessary  basis 
of  the  constitution  of  a  State,  and  in  attach- 
ing the  greatest  importance  to  the  influence 
of  music.  Like  Plato  he  regards  education, 
not  as  pertaining  only  to  the  period  of 
youth,  but  as  a  life-long  task.*  And  he 
would  place  it  not  less  absolutely  under 
the  control  of  the  authorities.  The  supreme 
good  for  man,  and  the  ultimate  object  of 
all  his  manifold  endeavours,  is  happiness ; 

*  This  view  is  often  incidentally  given  in  the  Politics,  but 
comes  out  most  explicitly  in  Eth.  Nic.  x.  10. 


1 3 6     ARISTOTLE  ON  EDUCA  TION. 

and  happiness  is  shown  in  the  Nicomacheari 
Ethics  by  an  exhaustive  analysis  to  be 
"  the  conscious  activity  of  the  highest  part 
of  man  according  to  the  law  of  his  own 
excellence,  not  unaccompanied  by  adequate 
external  conditions."  The  greater  part  of 
the  Ethics  is  taken  up  with  the  determina- 
tion of  the  contents  of  this  "  law  of  excel- 
lence "  for  man.  But  an  important  portion 
of  the  question  is  reserved  for  the  Politics. 
For  the  law  of  man's  excellence  must  be 
ascertained  by  a  complete  consideration 
of  his  nature  («£uW) ;  and  his  <£iW  plainly 
shows  him  to  be  a  political  creature  (TroXm/cov 
faJov),  much  more  so  than  the  bee  or  any 
Pol.  i.  2,  10.  other  gregarious  animal.  So  that  really 
T»j  <£iW,  the  State  is  anterior  to  the  family 
or  to  any  individual;  and  therefore  indi- 
viduals are  to  be  regarded  primarily  and 
essentially  as  members  of  a  community. 
But  here,  too,  comes  in  that  limitation  of 
the  idea  of  a  State  which  we  have  noticed 
already  in  Sparta,  in  Athens,  and  in  Plato's 
ideal  Republic.  In  a  perfect  State  all  the 
citizens  should  be  happy;  the  attainment 
of  his  own  supreme  good  by  every  indi- 


THE  STATE  AND  THE  CITIZEN.  137 

vidual  is  the  very  raison  d'etre  of  a  State, 
and  at  the  same  time  the  necessary  con- 
dition of  its  existence.  But  men  can  only 
be  happy  by  virtue,  and  those  who  are 
not  capable  of  the  highest  excellence  have 
no  right  to  citizenship.  Not  only  slaves 
but  also  artisans  are  excluded  by  the  con- 
ditions of  their  life  from  attaining  to  this  Pol.  iii.  5,  3. 
supreme  excellence.  Therefore  "  the  best 
civic  community  will  never  admit  an  artisan 
(ftavavo-ov)  to  the  franchise ; "  or,  if  such  be 
admitted,  the  whole  conception  of  the  ideal 
excellence  of  a  citizen  must  be  modified  : 
"  for  it  is  not  possible  to  care  for  the  things 
of  virtue  while  living  the  life  of  an  artisan 
or  a  slave."  The  citizen  is  he  who  is  able  to 
take  his  share  in  all  the  duties  and  honours 
of  civic  life ;  and  the  purpose  of  education 
is  to  enable  him  to  do  so  aright. 
Now  that  which  makes  men  "  political/'  Aristotle's 

Psychology. 

and  raises  them  above  the  beasts,  is  the 
possession  of  reason  and  language.*  If, 
therefore,  the  supreme  good  of  man  is  the 

»  The  meaning  of  Xoyoc  in  the  Politics  seems  to  vary 
between  these  two  ideas,  or  rather  perhaps  to  comprise  them 
both.  Cp.  Pol.  i.  2,  10,  with  Pol.  vii.  (iv.)  15. 


138     ARISTOTLE  ON  EDUCA  TION. 

conscious  activity  of  his  highest  part,  it 
is  evident  that  the  main  aim  of  education 
must  be  the  perfect  developement  of  rea- 
son :  6  Sc  Aoyos  fjfjitv  Kal  6  vovs  -nys  <f>v<r€d*s  TcAos. 

TOVTOUS    T1JV    yCl/€(TtV    KOL    TrjV    T&V    C0&V    O*€l 

(Pol.  iv.  (vii.)  15,  8).     But 

although  this  is  the  most  important  object, 
it  does  not  follow  that  it  is  to  be  the  first 
attended  to.      In   time    the  lower  has  to 
come  before  the  higher,  the  means  before 
Cp.  the          the   end.     Man   consists  not   only  of  soul 
quSecTby       (faxV)  but  also  of  body  ;  and  the  soul  itself 
392  .Cr'  "*  2'     consists  of  that  which  is  possessed  of  rea- 
son (TO  Aoyov  e\ov),  and  that  which  is  irra- 
tional  (TO  oXoyov),  the  latter  being  divided 
again    into    the     purely    vegetative    life, 
common  to  man  with  plants  and   animals 
(TO  OpzirriKov  or   <£VTIKOV),  and  that  which   to 
a  certain  extent  shares  in  reason  (/Acrcxov  ^y 
ov),  the  appetitive  and  passionate  part  of 


The  order  of  the  immaterial  principle.*     The  first  thing, 

education*  .    . 

therefore,  to  be  attended  to  is  the  training 
of  the  body;  the  second  is  the  moral  educa- 

*  Eth.  Nic.  i.  13.     In  Pol,  iv.  (vii.)  14,  of  the  last  it  is 
said,  rb  &  oiiK  l\u  piv  tcatf  avrb,  Xoyy  $'  viraicovtiv 
ptrov. 


ORDER  OF  EDUCA  TION.  1  39 

tion  of  the  desires  and  passions  ;  the  third 
and  highest  task  is  the  developement  of 
the  reason.  But  it  must  be  borne  in  mind 
throughout  that  the  first  two  are  not  ends 
in  themselves,  but  only  means  to  an  end  ; 
that  the  body  is  trained  for  the  sake  of 
the  soul,  and  the  passions  for  the  sake  of 
the  intellect.  All  the  citizens  are  to  share  Education 

,  ,  -  .  ,       ,  ,  common  to  all. 

the  same  education,  whether  they  are  to  be 

rulers  or  subjects  —  and  this  will  be  deter- 

mined by  age  rather  than  by  anything  else 

—  for  all  the  members  of  the  State  are  to 

be    made    as    good    as    possible.     But   he  Pol.  iv.  (vu.) 

by  no  means  accepts  the  doctrine  of  Plato,  *' 

insisted    upon    in    the    Republic,    though 

reasserted  with  much  less  emphasis  in  the 

Laws,  that  the  training  of  men  and  women 

is  to  be  identical.     On  the  contrary,  he  lays  The  differ- 

-  ,-     .  ,.    .     -.-,  ences  between 

much  stress  on  their  essential  differences,  men  and 
and  maintains   that  their  virtues   are  far™ 
from  identical.     While  the  slave  has  no  Pol.  i.  13, 

»J  _  T    » 

will  at  all,  and  the  child's  is  immature,  the 


woman's  is  invalid  (axvpov),  and  waits  for 
the  sanction  of  her  lord  (KV/HOS).  So  in  the 
case  of  moral  excellences,  we  must  admit 
that  all  possess  them,  but  they  vary  not 


i4o      ARISTOTLE  ON  EDUCA TION. 

only  in  degree  but  also  in  kind.  The  man's 
virtues  are  those  of  rule,  the  woman's  those 
of  obedience ;  hence  self-control,  courage, 
and  justice  will  be  different  in  her  case 
from  what  they  are  in  his.  Men  have  been 
misled  by  the  use  of  vague  generalities  ; 
but  the  real  state  of  the  case  is  clear  as 
soon  as  we  examine  the  matter  in  detail ; 
for  instance  : 

Soph.  Aj.  261.  A  modest  silence  well  becomes  a  woman, 

but   this    is    far   otherwise    with    a    man. 

Therefore  their  whole  system   of  training 

must   be   different,   and   it  will   require  a 

Pol.  i.  13, 15.  separate      consideration.       But      this     he 

Cp.  Zeller,  ii.  r 

534  (note  2),    nowhere    bestows   upon   it,   and    therefore 

and  St.  L    .  •  r  i  •         • 

Hiiaire,  ad  we  are  not  in  possession  of  his  views  on 
this  important  branch  of  the  subject.  We 
have  some  clue  to  the  manner  in  which  he 
would  probably  have  handled  it  in  the 
following  passage  from  the  Hist.  Anim.  ix. 
i.  (p.  608  B,  ed.  Bekker:  Berl.).  "Females 
are  tenderer  and  more  mischievous  and 
less  straightforward,  more  hasty,  and  more 
given  to  thought  for  the  nourishment  of 
their  offspring;  but  males,  on  the  other 
hand,  are  more  spirited,  fiercer,  more 


THE  NA  TURE  OF  WOMAN.          1 4 1 

straightforward  and  less  treacherous.  A 
woman  exceeds  a  man  in  pitifulness  and 
in  her  tendency  to  tears,  but  on  the  other 
hand  she  is  more  given  to  envy  and  cen- 
soriousness,  to  abusiveness  and  blows. 
Again,  the  female  is  more  inclined  than  the 
male  to  be  dispirited  and  despondent ;  she 
is  more  shameless  and  more  false,  and  at 
the  same  time  more  easily  deceived,  and 
of  a  better  memory ;  she  is  also  more 
wakeful,  but  more  sluggish,  and  generally 
less  disposed  to  move  than  man,  and  she 
needs  less  food.  The  male,  as  we  have 
said,  is  more  ready  to  give  help,  and  more 
courageous  than  the  female."  We  may 
hesitate  before  we  call  this,  with  Zeller 
(ii.  2.  535,  note  i),  "a  careful  observation  of 
natural  history,"  especially  as  traits  drawn 
from  Laconian  bitches,  bears,  and  female 
cuttle-fishes  are  without  hesitation  trans- 
ferred to  women.  But  it  is  a  sufficient 
proof  that  Aristotle  would  have  treated  the 
question  of  their  education  in  a  very  dif- 
ferent way  from  that  which  Plato  adopted 
upon  a  hasty  generalisation  as  to  their 
absolute  identity  of  nature  with  men.  In 


HZ      ARISTOTLE  ON  EDUCA  TION. 

the  imperfect  discussion  of  the  subject  of 
education  contained  in  the  Politics,  it  is 
boys  and  youths  who  are  in  view  through- 
out. 

As  has  been   said  before,  the  ultimate 

aim  of  all  the  State-education  of  the  citizens 

is  the  full  developement  of  the  intellectual 

TJie  life  of     powers.     But  reason  (Aoyos)  admits  of  divi- 

action  and  the     . 

ti/eo/t**tom~&ioni  there  is  practical  reason,  concerned 
with  the  affairs  of  daily  life,  and  contem- 


plative reason  (6  OwprpiKos).  Which  of  these 
is  it  that  has  the  strongest  claims  upon  our 
attention  ?  Aristotle,  who  in  the  Nicoma- 
chean  Ethics  has  determined  the  supreme 
happiness  for  man  to  reside  in  the  greatest 
possible  continuity  of  intellectual  exercise, 
can  have  no  doubt  how  he  is  to  answer.  As 
war  is  to  be  pursued  only  for  the  sake  of 
peace,  and  business  only  for  the  sake  of 
leisure,  so  the  functions  of  the  practical 
reason  are  of  value  only  as  needful  for 
fuller  and  more  perfect  exercise  of  the 
speculative  reason.  This  has  been  too 
much  lost  sight  of  by  legislators,  who  have 
regarded  success  in  war  as  a  thing  to 
be  sought  for  its  own  sake;  and  conse- 


AIMS  OF  EDUCA  TION.  143 

quently  their  States  have  been  in  a  healthy 
condition  so  long  as  they  have  been  engaged 
in  war;  but  they  have  been  ruined  by 
peace,  losing  the  temper  (J3a<l>y)  of  their 
spirit,  because  they  have  never  been 
educated  to  a  proper  use  of  leisure.  In  Pol.  iv.  (vii.) 
Aristotle's  time  the  decay  of  Sparta  fur-  ' 
nished  a  striking  proof  of  the  inadequacy 
of  a  merely  military  training  for  the  life 
of  a  nation  ;  and  he  does  not  fail  to  make 
use  of  it  to  point  his  moral.  Therefore,  the 
object  of  the  legislator  must  be  to  inspire 
those  virtues  which  are  best  adapted  to 
secure  a  wise  and  happy  enjoyment  of 
peace  and  leisure.  Courage  and  endurance 
are  mainly  needed  for  times  of  active  duty  ; 
temperance  and  justice  are  also  required 
then,  but  still  more  in  leisure  and  tran- 
quillity, while  philosophy  is  especially 
appropriate  to  the  latter  condition.  To 
produce  these  virtues  we  need  the  co- 
operation of  (i)  the  natural  disposition, 

(2)  habits    that    become   instinctive,    and 

(3)  a  right  reason.    The  last  is  most  im- 
portant, but  it  is  the  last  to  appear  in  the 
life    of   a    child ;    its    habits    precede    its 


144      ARISTOTLE  ON  EDUCATION. 

reasoning  judgments,  and  the  habits  are 
themselves  preceded  by  natural  tendencies. 
Therefore,  as  we  saw  before,  the  care  of 
the  body  is  the  first  thing,  then  the  care 

Pol.  iv.  (vii.)    of  the  passions,  and  finally  the   discipline 
1-2,1422. 

of  the  intellect. 

Regulation  of  With  Aristotle,  as  with  Plato,  the  legis- 
lator's care  for  the  physical  well-being  of 
the  citizens  commences  with  the  regulation 
of  marriage.  The  special  points  to  be  pro- 
vided ag'ainst  are  a  disparity  of  age  between 
husband  and  wife,  and  too  early  marriages, 
which  have  the  double  disadvantage  that 
the  offspring  is  likely  to  be  puny,  and  that 
they  are  too  near  the  age  of  the  father,  and 
so  not  likely  to  reverence  him  as  they 
should.  The  proper  age  for  marriage  is 
pronounced  to  be  eighteen  for  women  and 
thirty-seven  for  men  ;  the  main  reason  for 
such  a  wide  interval  between  the  two  is 
apparently  that  the  procreative  power  in 
husband  and  wife  may  cease  at  about  the 

Rearing  of  same  time.  Detailed  regulations  follow'  as 
to  the  physical  conditions  needful  for 
securing  healthy  offspring.  Infants  who 
are  born  deformed  are  not  to  be  reared, 


REARING  OF  CHILDREN.         145 

and  if  the  population  appears  to  be  pressing 
on  the  limits  fixed  by  the  constitution, 
abortion  is  to  be  practised  in  the  early 
stages  of  the  growth  of  the  embryo.*  Much 
stress  is  laid  upon  the  quality  of  the  food 
given  to  children  when  young,  and  Aristotle 
appears  to  approve  of  the  mechanical  ap- 
pliances used,  as  he  says,  by  some  nations 
to  straighten  their  limbs.  Until  they  are 
five  years  of  age  they  are  not  be  set  to 
any  studies,  nor  to  any  compulsory  work, 
but  activity  of  body  is  to  be  promoted  by 
proper  amusements,  and  their  frames  are 
to  be  hardened  by  exposure  to  cold.  Dif- 
fering here  from  the  Spartan  legislator 
[see  p.  20]  Aristotle  will  not  have  them 

forbidden   tO   Cry  ;  f   o-vpfapti  yap  TT/OOS  avgrja-w ; 


*  This  precept  of  Aristotle's  did  not  find  universal  accept- 
ation even  in  Greece.  Cp.  Stobaeus,  74,  61,  and  75,  15 
(quoted  by  Schomann  Alterth.  i.  112,  note).  But  in  Rome 
there  is  no  trace  of  any  law  against  abortio  partus  before 
A.D.  200.  Cicero  (pro  Cluent.  n,  32)  has  to  go  to  Miletus 
for  an  example  of  its  punishment.  Cp.  Daremberg  and 
Saglio  :  Diet.  Ant.  p.  16. 

f  Congrevc,  on  Pol.  iv.  (vii.)  17,  6,  apparently  takes 
dtardffiic  to  refer  to  physical  exertions  generally ;  but  it 
must  surely  be  here  limited  to  "  shouts."  Cp.  the  use  of 
!i>r€n>a/i€j/oc  in  Plat.  Rep.  536  C  ;  Ar.  Nub.  968,  "  les  cris 
et  les  pleurs,"  St.  Hilaire. 


i46      ARISTOTLE  ON  EDVCA  TION. 


Philo,  quoted 

Hon  Ep!  i* 

2'  69* 


it  acts  as  a  gymnastic  exercise  for  little 
children.  Like  Plato  he  holds  that  the 
stories  which  they  are  told  should  be  only 
such  as  are  sanctioned  by  the  authorities  ; 
they  are  to  be  kept  away,  as  far  as  possible, 
from  the  society  of  slaves,  and  are  not  to 
be  allowed  to  witness  any  of  the  buffoon- 
eries which  the  laws  allow  in  the  worship 
of  some  of  the  gods.  Aristotle  is  indeed 
somewhat  doubtful  whether  any  such  ex- 
hibitions are  to  be  suffered  at  all  ;  but  he 
reserves  this  point  for  a  more  detailed 
examination,  which  is  not  found  in  his 
extant  works*  The  point  on  which  he 
lays  especial  stress  is  that  the  first  im- 
pressions left  upon  the  mind  of  a  child 
should  be  wholly  free  from  every  kind  of 

evil  :  —  worTrcp  yap  <f>a<rl  ra  *cva  TWV  dyyetW  dva^epctv 
ras  TU>I>  rrpwroH/  cis  avra  eyxvfleirwv  <xr/xas,  ovrw  KCU 

a^(a£  From  the  age  of  five  to 
seven  children  are  to  be  lookers-on 
at  the  lessons,  which  afterwards  they  will 
have  to  learn  ;  and  then  they  are  to  be 
taken  under  the  more  immediate  super- 
vision of  the  State. 

But    now    that    he    has    come    to    the 


EARLY  TRAINING.  147 

threshold    of   education   proper,  Aristotle  Nature  of 

,     N    _.  the  State  edu- 

raises  three  questions:  (i.j  Ought  there  to  cation. 
be  any  public  authoritative  system  of  edu- 
cation? (2.)  Ought  it  to  be  the  same  for 
all  ?  (3.)  If  so,  in  what  should  it  consist  ? 
The  first  two  are  easily  answered  from  his 
point  of  view ;  indeed  the  theories  upon 
which  he  has  been  building  up  the  whole 
of  his  ideal  of  a  State,  will  only  allow 
them  to  be  answered  in  one  way.  For 
in  the  Nicomachean  Ethics  (ii.  i.)  he  has 
shown  that  a  previous  training  from  child- 
hood up  is  needful  for  virtuous  actions  (in- 
asmuch as  virtue  resides  not  in  the  act, 
but  in  the  moral  state  (2&s)  from  which  it 
springs);  and  in  the  tenth  book  of  the 
same  work  (c.  10}  he  has  shown  that  the 
previous  training  can  only,  or  at  any  rate 
can  best,  be  had  through  a  system  based 
upon  public  authority.  And  this  is  not 
only  the  case  in  the  ideal  State :  it  is  even 
more  true  in  imperfect  States  like  the 
democratic  or  the  oligarchic:  for  every 
constitution  requires  for  its  stability  that 
the  characters  of  the  citizens  should  be  in 
harmony  with  it,  and  this  can  only  be 


1 48      ARISTOTLE  ON  EDUCA  TION. 

secured  by  a  State-ordered  system  of  edu- 
cation. That  it  must  be  one  and  the  same 

Pol.  v.  (vin.) 

l>  2-  for  all  is  proved  by  a  consideration  of  the 

fact  that  the  State  as  a  whole  can  have  but 
one  ultimate  aim  ;  things  of  public  concern 
must  be  dealt  with  by  the  public ;  and  it 
is  a  grave  mistake  to  suppose  that  any 
citizen  belongs  to  himself :  far  rather  does 
he  belong  to  the  State  of  which  he  is  a 
member ;  and  the  State  must  determine 
his  education  as  it  sees  to  be  best,  without 
making  any  distinctions  between  one  and 
another.  But  with  regard  to  the  things 
to  be  taught  there  is  great  difference  of 
opinion.  Is  education  to  be  merely  utili- 
tarian, or  is  it  to  include  moral  training,  or 
are  the  higher  refinements*  of  intellectual 
culture  also  to  be  aimed  at  ?  All  these 
views  have  found  supporters;  so  that  the 
systems  actually  in  vogue  help  us  little. 
It  is  certain,  however,  that  useful  know- 
ledge ought  to  form  a  part  of  education ; 
but  then  only  that  portion  of  useful  know- 

*  T&  Trspirra  seems  to  be  used  here  much  in  the  same 
sense  as  in  Aristotle's  well-known  description  of  the  dialogues 
of  Plato  (Pol.  ii.  6,  5)  with  perhaps  a  touch  of  depreciation, 
but  hardly  as  St.  Hilaue,  "des  objets  de pur  agrement" 


ITS  CHARACTER.  149 

ledge  is  to  be  sanctioned  which  is  free 
from  all  taint  of  servility.  Every  art  and 
every  study  is  to  be  considered  servile 
which  renders  the  body  or  the  soul  or  the 
intellect  of  a  freeman  unserviceable  for 
the  acts  and  practices  of  virtue.  And 
under  this  head  come  all  occupations  which 
are  pursued  for  wages,  for  they  deprive 
the  intellect  of  leisure  and  make  it  abject. 
Even  liberal  studies,  if  pursued  too  far,  or 
for  improper  motives,  are  liable  to  certain 
dangers.  Perhaps  an  examination  of  the  Detailed  exa- 
various  constituents  of  education  in  detail  7he  Subjects  oj 
may  lead  us  to  more  general  views.  These  ea 
are  four  in  number,  for  to  letters,  gym- 
nastics, and  music  some  now  add  drawing. 
It  is  evident  that  letters  and  drawing  are 
useful  studies  ;  and  the  same  may  be  said 
of  gymnastics,  for  this  developes  that 
courage  and  bodily  vigour  which  are  need- 
ful for  the  well-being  of  the  State.  But 
what  of  music  ?  It  cannot  be  said  to  be 
useful  in  the  same  way  as  these  other 
pursuits.  The  ancients  always  studied  it 
as  affording  an  honourable  occupation  for 
leisure,  and  this  is  the  true  view.  For  the 


1 50      ARISTOTLE  ON  EDUCA  TION. 

right  employment  of  leisure  is  one  of  the 
most  important  tasks  that  can  be  set  to  a 
man.  Work  is  always  done  for  some  end, 
and  therefore  has  not  an  independent  value 
of  its  own ;  but  leisure  is  an  end  in  itself, 
and  can  be  used  at  our  discretion  for  the 
highest  purposes.  It  must  not  be  used  for 
amusement  merely,  for  that  would  be  to 
make  amusement — which  is  properly  only 
a  relief  from  work — the  chief  end  of  life. 
The  main  aim  of  education  is  to  teach  a 
man  the  right  use  of  leisure ;  and  music 
has  always  been  justly  regarded  as  one 
of  the  noblest  and  most  elevating  employ- 
ments for  such  time.  It  may  therefore 
claim  its  place  as  one  of  the  most  impor- 
tant elements  of  the  higher  education.  But 
even  those  arts  which  are  of  direct  utility, 
like  reading,  writing,  and  drawing,  are  not 
to  be  learnt  solely  on  the  ground  of  their 
utility  :  they  may  have,  if  properly  taught,  a 
helpful  influence  on  the  mind.  To  resume, 
then,  the  detailed  consideration  of  the 
various  branches  of  education,  in  order 
Gymnastics,  previously  decided  on  : — First,  the  body  is 
to  be  trained  by  the  gymnast  and  the 


GYMNASTICS.  151 

"  paedotribe."  But  care  is  to  be  taken 
that  gymnastics  do  not  pass  into  ath- 
letics (cp.  p.  28),  and  that  they  are  not 
carried  so  far  as  to  injure  the  character. 
The  Lacedaemonians,  though  they  have 
avoided  the  former  error,  have  fallen  into 
the  latter.  They  have  formed  their  system 
with  a  view  to  courage  alone ;  but,  in  the 
first  place,  no  one  virtue  is  to  be  pursued 
to  the  neglect  of  others;  secondly,  if  any 
one  ought  to  be  so  pursued,  it  certainly  is 
not  courage ;  and  thirdly,  courage  is  a  very 
different  thing  from  ferocity,  as  we  may 
see  in  the  case  of  many  barbarous  tribes. 
Great  care  must  be  taken  not  to  overtrain 
boys  in  gymnastics,  or  more  evil  than  good 
will  be  the  result.  Indeed,  they  must  be 
allowed  to  spend  at  least  three  years  in 
their  other  studies  before  they  begin  any 
severe  gymnastic  exercises ;  for  "  it  is  not 
proper  to  put  the  body  and  the  mind  to 
hard  work  at  the  same  time/'  We  may  Pol.  v.  (viii.) 
pause  for  a  moment  in  this  resume  of  Axis-  4l 
totle's  theories  to  notice  how  he  agrees 
with  Plato  on  a  point  which  is  very  strange 
to  our  modern  ideas,  "  He  seems  to  have 


iS2      ARISTOTLE  ON  EDUCA TION. 

thought  that  two  things  of  an  opposite  and 
different  nature  could  not  be  learnt  at  the 
same  time.  We  can  hardly  agree  with 
him,  judging  by  experience  of  the  effect 
on  the  mind  of  spending  three  years,  be- 
lowett,  Plato,  tween  the  ages  of  fourteen  and  seventeen, 

ii.  154. 

in  mere  bodily  exercise." 

Musk.  Music  in  its  narrower  sense  was  so  firmly 

established  in  the  time  of  Aristotle  as  an 
essential  portion  of  education,  that  we 
could  have  well  understood  his  motives, 
if  he  had  been  content  to  accept  the  tra- 
ditional ideas  upon  the  subject.  But, 
according  to  his  custom,  he  enters  upon 
a  careful  analysis  of  the  purposes  which 
music  is  intended  to  serve.  Is  it  simply 
a  sensuous  gratification,  as  some  assume  ? 
Or,  has  it  an  ennobling  effect  upon  the 
character  ?  Or,  does  it  even  contribute  to 
the  developement  of  the  intellect  (^oi/Tyo-ts), 
by  supplying  it  with  needful  relaxation  ? 
It  is  evident  that  it  cannot  be  simply 
amusement,  or  it  would  form  no  part  of 
education ;  for  the  end  of  education  is  not 
amusement.  Nor  can  it  be  the  case  that 
the  boy  is  trained  to  music  that  he  may 


THE  PURPOSE  OF  MUSIC.          1 5  3 

have  amusement  when  he  is  grown  up ; 
for  this  could  be  better  supplied  by  the 
services  of  professional  musicians.  Nor 
can  it  be  pursued  only  for  its  effect  on 
the  character.  In  that  case,  too,  there 
would  be  no  need  to  learn  it  personally ; 
and  it  is  recognised  that  there  is  some- 
thing servile  (/Savavow)  in  a  professional 
study  of  music.  Aristotle's  own  opinion 
is,  that  music  may  be  considered  at  once 
a  means  of  education  (inuoVa),  an  amuse- 
ment (TrcuSia),  and  a  source  of  enjoyment 
in  life  (8iayo>y>/),* — "  an  ornament  of  life 
in  its  highest  form,  when  the  man  has 
passed  the  restlessness  of  childhood,  ever 
in  want  of  amusement;  has  passed  the 
struggles  of  youth  and  earlier  manhood, 
the  period  of  learning,  of  discipline,  of 
formation  of  character ;  and  has  reached 
the  settled  state  of  life  and  mature  man- 
hood, to  be  spent  not  in  business  or  in 
war,  but  as  a  period  of  rest  and  peaceful 

*  The  distinction  between  iraiStd  and  £iaywy»j  appears  to 
be  that  the  former  is  rather  "childish  games,"  the  latter 
"rational  relaxation  "  [cp.  v.  5,  10,  and  Congreve  on  v.  3,  6], 
Liddell  and  Scott  appear  to  be  somewhat  misleading.  See 
Zeller,  ii.  2,  577,  5. 


1 54      ARISTOTLE  ON  EDUCA  TION. 
Congrcvc,       contemplation/1      It    is    admitted    on    all 

Politics  of 

Aristotle,  hands  to  be  one  of  the  greatest  of  plea- 
sures ;  and  that  it  influences  the  character 
is  clear  from  its  evident  power  over  the 
emotions,  for  it  is  the  emotions  which  form 
the  character.  And  as  right  education 
consists  in  training  men  to  feel  pleasure 
at  right  objects  (cp.  Nic.  Eth.  book  ii.), 
the  power  which  music  has  in  this  respect 
must  be  of  the  greatest  value.  The  dif- 
ferent "modes'*  are  found  by  experience 
to  have  different  effects.  Mixolydian  is 
plaintive,  the  Dorian  produces  a  steady 
calm,  the  Phrygian  excites  the  passions; 
and  these  facts  are  to  be  remembered  in 
using  them  for  purposes  of  education. 

Practical  But  is  it  necessary  for  boys  to  acquire 

knowledge  of  f  __ 

music.  any  skill  in  performing  themselves  ?    Yes : 

for,  in  the  first  place,  this  will  intensify  the 
effect  of  music  upon  them  ;  and,  secondly, 
they  must  have  something  to  do  with 
their  hands,  or  they  will  be  always  break- 
ing things.  But  this  practical  acquaintance 
with  music  is  not  to  be  carried  so  far  as 
to  interfere  with  other  studies,  or  to  teach 
them  to  perform  the  wonderful  new-fangled 


THE  STUDY*OF  MUSIC.  155 

flourishes    (ra    Oavfjiaa-ia    xal    irc/umfc    r&v  €py<av) 

which  were  coming  into  fashion  in  Aris- 
totle's time.    The  flute  was  to  be  rejected,  CD,  Hermann 

9  ad  Soph. 

as  an  immoral  instrument,  unduly  exciting,  Trach.  216, 

and  the 

and  contributing  nothing  to  real  education  Scholiast 
(Pol.  v.  7,  14).    Then  he  proceeds  to  dis-  ed.  Elms].)/' 

and  Cic.  pro 

cuss  the  rhythms  to  be  permitted :  the  Mur.  §  29. 
moral  modes  alone  are  to  be  employed  for 
study,  though  the  more  animated  and  pas- 
sionate ones  may  be  allowed  in  concerts, 
where  the  audience  only  listen,  without 
taking  any  part  themselves.  A  decided 
preference  is  expressed  for  the  Dorian 
mode,  and  Plato  is  censured  for  having 
in  his  Republic  allowed  the  Phrygian 
alone  to  remain  by  the  side  of  the  Dorian 
at  the  same  time  that  he  proscribed  the 
music  of  the  flute,  which  is  particularly 
appropriate  to  it.  A  greater  variety  should 
be  admitted,  in  view  of  the  different  pur- 
poses to  which  music  is  applied.  Only 
three  requisites  are  always  to  be  kept  in 
mind — the  absence  of  excess  (TO  /t«rov),  the 
limits  of  what  is  practicable  (TO  SwaTdV), 
and  propriety  (TO  irp«rov). 
Here  Aristotle  breaks  off  his  formal 


1 5 6      ARISTOTLE  ON  ED UCA  TION. 
incomplete-     discussion  of  education.     Whether  the  fifth 

ness  of  the 

discussion.  book  of  the  Politics  is  fragmentary,  as 
Schneider,  Stahr,  Congreve,  and  Zeller 
maintain,  or  whether  it  is  perfect,  as  St. 
Hilaire  contends,  we  cannot  decide  with 
certainty.  But  the  weight  of  authority  and 
of  probability  appear  to  incline  to  the 

See  the  very    former  belief.     At  all   events,  we  are  left 

complete 

discussion  of    to   gather  the  views  of  Aristotle  on  the 

the  question  .    .  r    1  ., 

in  Zeller,  ii.  proper  training  of  the  intellect  of  a  nation, 
°~5  as  best  we  may,  from  the  principles  that 
are  established,  and  the  hints  that  are 
dropped  in  his  other  treatises.  The  phi- 
losopher who  made  the  supreme  good  of 
man  to  reside  in  the  vigorous  and  unim- 
peded play  of  the  intellect,  and  who,  per- 
haps more  than  any  other  of  his  time, 
recognised  the  absolute  necessity  of  a 
careful  and  long-continued  training  to 
produce  this,  either  never  lived  to  give 
to  the  world  his  matured  thoughts  on  the 
methods  and  instruments  of  this  training, 
or  he  wrote  them  down  only  to  share  the 
fate  of  others  of  his  most  precious  works. 
The  same  caprice  of  fortune  which  has 
preserved  to  us  the  treatise  "  De  Gene- 


HIS  VIEWS  INCOMPLETE.         157 

ratione  Animalium,"  and  robbed  us  of  the  Zeller,  ii.  2, 
TIoAtTctat,  has,  it  is  to  be  feared,  deprived  unersetziiche 
us  of  what  would  have  been  an  invaluable 
criticism  on  the  educational  uses  of  litera- 
ture, and  the  means  of  developing  the 
higher  intellectual  powers.  And  even  in 
the  case  of  his  Poetics,  from  which  we 
might  have  expected  to  draw  some  matter 
for  our  present  purpose,  we  find  on  the 
one  hand  much  that  is  undoubtedly  spu- 
rious intermixed,  and  on  the  other  hand 
we  have  a  singular  incompleteness  of 
treatment,  which  leaves  some  of  the  most 
important  aspects  of  his  subject  wholly 
untouched.  It  can  only  be  considered  as 
a  fragmentary  and  largely  interpolated 
collection  of  isolated  extracts  from  Aris- 
totle's original  work.  The  general  ends  to  7/eiier,  H.  2 
which  he  would  have  directed  his  training  77>  n< 
may  be  gathered  to  some  extent  from  the 
Sixth  Book  of  the  [Nicomachean]  Ethics, 
where  he  treats  of  the  intellectual  virtues. 
But  here  again  we  must  notice,  first,  that 
the  Aristotelian  authorship  of  this  book 
is  more  than  doubtful.  Sir  A.  Grant  has 
shown,  I  think  almost  to  demonstration, 


1 58      ARISTOTLE  ON  EDUCA TION. 

Aristotle's  that,  with  the  book  which  precedes  it  and 
PP-  33-43-  that  which  follows  it,  it  is  the  work  of 
Eudemus,  and  that,  although  on  the  whole 
it  gives  a  fair  representation  of  the  master's 
views,  it  is  in  some  points  at  variance  with 
them,  and  on  many  points  obscure.  And 
secondly,  the  intellectual  excellences  are 
regarded  not  so  mucn  in  and  for  them- 
selves, as  in  relation  to  their  influence 
Eudemus  on  in  determining  the  moral  canon.  Virtue 
tuai\>irtues.  having  been  previously  defined  to  be  a 
mean  between  two  extremes,  which  mean 
is  to  be  fixed  by  "  right  reason,"  it  follows 
to  explain  what  this  "  right  reason"  (6  6p0os 
Xoyos)  is.  The  rational  part  of  the  soul  is 
shown  to  consist  of  two  parts — the  one, 
which  may  be  called  the  scientific  reason 
(TO  cTTMroy/AoviicoV),  dealing  with  necessary 
principles  and  the  existences  depending 

On  them  (TO,  rotavra  TOJV  ovrwv  ckrcov  at  ap^at  fjirj 
wSexoKTut  aXXws  fyctv) ;  and  the  other,  the 
calculative  reason  (TO  AoyurrocoV),  to  which 
appertains  contingent  matter.  We  have 
seen  before  that  there  are  three  principles 
in  man — sensation  (awr&^ns),  reason  (vov«), 
and  desire  (opcfis) — corresponding  to  the 


THE  EUDEMIAN  ETHICS.         1 59 

three  parts  of  his  nature.  Action  results 
from  the  synthesis  of  desire  and  the  prac- 
tical or  calculative  reason,  when  that 
which  is  affirmed  or  desired  by  the  latter 
is  pursued  or  avoided  by  the  former. 
Then  again  it  is  shown  that  truth,  of 
whatever  kind,  is  attained  only  by  five 
organs  of  the  mind  (ol*  dAi^cv 
These  are  art  (TCX^),  science 
wisdom  (<£pdn^ris)»  philosophy  (o-o^ta),  rea- 
son (vow) :  the  first  is  the  acquisition  of 
truth,  with  a  view  to  production ;  the  second 
covers  the  results  of  syllogistic  reasoning; 
the  third  is  right  knowledge,  with  a  view 
to  action ;  the  fifth  is  the  organ  or  mode 
whereby  we  arrive  at  principles ;  and  the 
fourth  is  higher  than  all  the  others,  and 
comprehends  both  wisdom  and  reason,  the 
knowledge  of  particulars  and  the  grasp 
of  principles.  The  three  great  divisions 
of  human  science—tfeoAoywo?,  ftafy/umioy,  and 
0wrtKij — are  but  branches  of  this  all-em- 
bracing cro^icu  In  this  classification  it  is 
evident  that  the  various  sections  are  not 
co-ordinate;  and  it  seems  very  possible 
that  Eudemus  comprehended  but  imper- 


1 60      ARISTOTLE  ON  EDUCA TION. 

fectly,  or  else  has  unwisely  attempted  to 
improve  upon,  the  psychology  of  his 
teacher.*  Be  this  as  it  may,  he  has  left 
us  without  the  means  of  learning  by  what 
methods  either  Aristotle  or  he  would  have 
promoted  the  developement  of  these  several 
intellectual  excellences,  and  which  of  them 
he  would  have  especially  cultivated  in  a 

indication  of  system    of   national  education.     We    can 
Aristotle's 

only    say    that    he  would    have    laid    the 

greatest  stress  on  the  formation  of  vir- 
tuous habits,  as  a  means  of  attaining  prac- 
tical wisdom,  ov  yap  otov  TC  cTvat  ayaOov 
ai/ev  t^povijcrecos  ovSe  ^povifiov  avcv  -njs 
But  this  simply  brings  us  back  to  our 
former  position,  that  Aristotle  attached  the 
greatest  importance  to  an  authoritative 
public  discipline  of  the  manners  and  the 
intellect,  and  makes  us  regret  the  more 
deeply  that  we  can  form  such  imperfect 
conceptions  of  the  detailed  form  which  he 
would  have  given  to  it*  That  he  would 
have  expanded  the  common  curriculum, 

*  The  division  given  in  the  Posterior  Analytics  is  much 
more  clear  and  satisfactory:  there  we  have  three  pairs 
mutually  contrasted  :  didvota  vovc,  eiriffrrjpt)  rk 
<ro$ia.  Cp.  Sir  A.  Grant  on  Eth.  vi.  4,  i. 


INDICA  TION  OF  HIS  VIE  WS.       1 6 1 

at  least  for  the  most  advanced  students, 
by  the  addition  of  a  far  more  scientific 
rhetoric,  and  an  all  but  wholly  new  logic, 
by  a  wide  acquaintance  with  natural  sci- 
ence, and  a  universal  application  of  the 
historical  method  of  research,  may  be 
argued  fairly  from  the  contents  of  his 
published  works ;  but  what  in  his  opinion 
should  be  the  order  of  their  study,  and 
what  the  extent  to  which  they  should  be 
pursued  by  various  classes  of  the  com- 
munity, must  always  remain  uncertain. 
It  is  only  clear,  from  the  well-known  ex- 
pression that  young  men  ought  not  to 
study  philosophy,  that  Aristotle  would 

have  had  a  careful  and  protracted  intel- 

y 
lectual  discipline  precede  any  attempt  to 

grapple  with  the  problems  of  ethics.  To 
art  he  would  certainly  have  assigned  a 
larger  place  in  education  than  Plato  did; 
for  while  the  latter,  in  his  Laws,  banishes 
poets  from  his  ideal  State,  with  but  few 
exceptions;  and  directs  that  the  youths, 
instead  of  committing  to  memory  the  epics 
of  Homer  or  the  lays  of  Simonides,  the 
lofty  lines  of  ^Eschylus  or  the  melodious 


1 62      A  RISTOTLE  ON  EDUCA  TION. 

choruses   of    Sophocles,   should    learn    by 
heart    the    laws    and    ordinances    of    the 
Laws,  vii.  811  legislator,*  Aristotle  accepts  with  approval 
""  not  only  the   tragic,  but  even   the   comic 
drama.     Provided  that  wit  does  not  dege- 
nerate into   scurrility,    and   that  the   dra- 
matist  chooses   for   his   attack  faults  that 
are  really  ridiculous,  and  not  serious  moral 

offences — TO  yap  yckolov  ccrrtv  a/xa/m^a  Tt  KCM 
eutr^os  avwSvvov  Ka.1  ov  <f>6apriKQi' — he  is  Willing 

to  recognise  its  value.  His  conception  of 
the  importance  of  tragedy  in  moral  edu- 
cation comes  out  in  the  much-discussed 
expression,  u  effecting  a  purification  of 
passions  such  as  these  by  means  of  pity 

and    fear,"    oV    cAeov    /cat    ^>o/3ov    TrcpatVovcra    rrjv 
Zeller,  ii.  2,      TW    roiovrwv    -Tra^'/y/Aarwv    Ka^apcriv.        \Vhat    the 

precise  meaning  of  the  phrase  is,  it  is  far 
from  easy  to  determine :  perhaps  the  most 
satisfactory  view  is  that  of  Zeller,  who 
regards  the  "purification"  as  consisting, 
not  in  the  improvement  of  the  will,  or 
the  strengthening  of  virtuous  tendencies, 
but  in  the  removal  of  the  evils  caused 

*  On  Plato's  views  of  art,  and  the  dangers  tc  which  it  is 
exposed,  see  Zeller,  ii.  i,  613. 


GENERAL  ASPECTS.  163 

by  too  violent  emotions,  and  in  the  calm- 
ing of  the  passions.  This  tragedy  effects  Cp.  Zeiler,  H. 
by  referring  the  individual  instances  of 
suffering  and  calamity  to  the  common  law 
of  destiny,  and  by  pointing  out  under  all 
the  eternal  law  of  righteousness. 

But  it  is  impossible  to  weave  into  any 
consistent  and  harmonious  scheme  frag- 
mentary facts  like  these ;  and  we  are 
obliged  to  leave  imperfect  the  attempted 
sketch  of  the  thoughts  of  "  the  master  of 
those  who  know/*  on  what  he  would  him- 
self have  regarded  as  the  fundamental 
question  of  national  education. 

A  few  words  may  be  added  in  conclusion  General 

aspects  of 

on  some  general  aspects  of  the  question  Greek  educa- 
under  our  consideration.  They  have,  it 
is  hoped,  not  been  wholly  lost  sight  of 
in  the  study  of  the  details ;  but  it  may 
be  that  they  will  be  brought  into  a  clearer 
light,  when  gathered  up  together  by  way 
of  a  retrospect.  There  is  one  point  of 
view  from  which  the  national  education 
of  Greece  appears  to  us  singularly  attrac- 
tive. Like  the  works  of  the  artists  and 
poets  who  were  trained  by  it,  it  possesses 


1  64     ARISTOTLE  ON  EDUCATION. 

a  unity  and  completeness  within  its  limits 
that  are  all  but  perfect.*  Just  as 

"  The  singer  of  sweet  Colonos,  and  its  child," 

who  always  rises  to  our  thoughts  as  the 
crown  and  flower  of  the  Hellenic  genius, 

"  Saw  life  steadily,  and  saw  it  whole  ;  " 

so  the  Greek  education  laid  its  hands  on 
the  entire  citizen,  and,  within  the  range 
that  it  recognised,  moulded  all  his  powers 
into  a  finished  unity.  Beauty  of  form, 
and  grace  of  movement,  subtleness  of 
intellect,  and  nobleness  of  life  were  all 
attained,  at  least  to  such  an  extent  as  to 
leave  no  jarring  sense  of  flagrant  discord 
between  the  ideal  aimed  at  and  the  work 
achieved.  This  it  is  that  lends  so  much 
of  the  charm  of  those  "  self-sufficing  " 
days,  in  the  eyes  of  those  who  are  wearied 
and  distracted  with  the  manifold  claims 
of  the  varied  developements  of  modern 
thought.  There  is  a  certain  sense  of  ade- 
quacy, of  attainment,  of  perfection,  which 
wins  ineffably  on  those  who  are  harassed 
with  the  u  blank  misgivings,"  the  un- 


*  Cp.  the  remarks  on  the  uaittTog  aiOrjp  of  Greek  litera- 
ture in  the  "  Guesses  at  Truth,"  pp.  39  and  64  (last  ed.) 


MODERN  THOUGHT.  165 

satisfied  yearnings,  the  baffled  aspirations, 
the  unsolved  problems,  that  vex  alike  the 
life  and  the  literature  of  our  times.  And 
yet  we  are  bound,  while  we  feel  very 
keenly  the  charm,  to  recognise  the  cost 
at  which  it  was  won,  a  cost  that  we 
could  not  and  would  not  pay.  The  deep  Contrast  of 

modern 

dull  hue  of  much  of  our  modern  thought  thought. 
is  due  not  solely  to  the  turbid  source  from 
which  it  springs :  it  comes  at  least  as  much 
from  the  profundity  of  the  abysses  over 
which  it  is  brooding.  If  the  course  of 
the  modern  student  is  often  perplexing, 
it  is  not  because  he  is  called  to  traverse 
a  desert  way,  but  rather  that  on  eveiy 
side  there  branch  out  by-paths,  tempting 
him  away  from  the  road  he  has  chosen 
by  the  beauty  of  the  prospects  that  they 
offer,  or  the  richness  of  the  fruits  that 
lie  on  every  hand.  If  the  Greeks  were 
not  tried  by  a  "  Conflict  of  Studies,"  such 
as  that  in  which  we  find  ourselves,  it 
was  from  the  limitation,  we  may  almost 
dare  to  add,  the  poverty,  of  their  intel- 
lectual food.  It  may  indeed  be  that  we 
are  now  constrained  to  a  specialization 


i66      ARISTOTLE  ON  EDUCA TION. 

which  leads  to  a  more  one-sided  and  in- 
complete developement  of  the  whole  being 
of  a  man  than  the  music  and  gymnastics 
of  a  young  Athenian.  But  if  it  be  found 
to  be  so  irremediably,  we  can  but  take 
refuge  in  the  faith  that  none  have  taught 
more  unwaveringly  than  the  philosophers 
of  Athens,  that  the  \vell-being  of  the 
State  brings  with  it  the  well-being  of  all 
and  every  one.  If  "the  individual  withers/' 
yet  "  the  world  is  more  and  more." 
Wider  extent  But  again,  if  we  ought  to  be  willing 

of  modern. 

education.  to  sacrifice  something  of  the  perfect  and 
harmonious  unity  of  the  Greek  education 
for  the  sake  of  a  deeper  culture,  much 
more  should  we  be  content  to  do  this 
when  it  is  a  question  of  its  greater  width 
and  extension.  As  we  have  already  seen, 
the  very  phrase  of  national  education  in 
Greece  is  all  but  a  misnomer.  Thanks 
to  the  lessons  we  have  learnt  from  the 
Gospel  of  Christ,  we  cannot  look  with 
complacence  upon  any  "national  educa- 
tion," howrever  well-rounded  and  self- 
sufficing,  whose  benefits  are  not  shared 
by  the  artisan,  the  peasant  and  the  factory- 


MODERN  ED  UCA  TION.  1 6  7 

hand.  The  task  which  the  legislators  of 
to-day  have  set  before  them  is  one  far 
harder  than  any  with  which  Plato  or 
Aristotle  dared  to  grapple.  It  is  to  see 
that  every  child  of  Britain's  thirty  millions 
has  placed  within  his  reach  that  training 
which  shall  fit  him  most  completely  to 
serve  his  fellow-men  in  the  station  in 
which  it  has  pleased  his  God  to  place  him. 
It  may  be  that  still  we  are  far  from  the 
goal.  Educational  theorists  are  debating; 
class-interests  bar  the  way ;  and,  worst  of 
all,  sectarian  jealousies  wrrangle,  till  it 
seems  at  times  that  the  day  for  which 
every  Christian  is  longing  would  never 
come  to  us.  But  come  it  must  at  last : 
and  then  we  shall  see  in  the  national 
schools  of  England  a  physical  training 
not  inferior  to  that  of  Athens  or  Lace- 
daemon;  heart  and  soul  shall  learn  to 
love  yet  nobler  truths  than  those  which 
dawned  before  the  eyes  of  Plato;  and  the 
wisdom  of  Aristotle  shall  be  as  childish 
fancies  to — 

"  The  fairy-tales  of  science,  and  the  long  results  of  time." 

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